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Some colleges cost $95,000 per year, and they're only getting more expensive. Here's why | CNN Business

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The average American saved $5,011 last year. That means it would take them about 75 years to save up enough cash to send one child to a top-rated US university.

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American colleges and universities are failing in one of their most basic missions: to equip students with the tools they need for a career. Many students graduate ill-prepared to earn a living and pay off the debt they’ve accumulated getting their degrees—40% of those who start college don’t finish within six years. Additionally, students are often subject to indoctrination into socialist ideology. They face hostility toward opinions that don’t conform to the predominantly leftist thinking on campus.

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The Biden administration's announcement that up to $20,000 in student loan debt will be canceled for borrowers will bring welcome relief to millions, as long as courts allow. But that relief won't do anything to slow the rapidly rising cost of going to college.

In the 1963-1964 academic year, the average annual published cost of in-state tuition and fees was $243 at public four-year institutions, and $1,011 at private four-year institutions, according to National Center for Education Statistics data. That excludes room and board.

If the published cost of college remained in line with inflation, annual tuition and fees would have been $2,076 at four-year public universities and $8,624 at private institutions for the 2020-2021 academic year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics' data in constant dollars, or income adjusted for inflation.

But in the 2020-2021 academic year, the average price tag for in-state tuition and fees at a four-year public institution was $9,375, and at private four-year institutions, it was a whopping $32,825. With student housing, that cost skyrockets - some schools are charging those who can afford it over $70,000 per year.

Why is college so expensive?

"There's no one single answer," says Beth Akers, author of "Making College Pay" and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "You can ask lots of different people and they have lots of different reasons."

However, the sticker price an institution lists on its website and the net price can be pretty far apart, said Phillip Levine, an economist at Wellesley College. The net price is what students pay after needs-based aid and merit scholarships. The net price has increased at a faster rate at public institutions, where state funding hasn't kept pace with the increase in price.

The government doesn't track the net price students pay at public vs. private institutions. But according to the College Board, students on average receive more financial aid at private institutions. And the net price families paid at private colleges for tuition, room and board was about $33,720 at private institutions, compared with $19,230 at public colleges for the 2021-2022 academic year.

In the last two decades, the published price of tuition and fees at private four-year institutions has increased much more rapidly than the net tuition. Over the last 20 years, their sticker prices have gone up 54% in inflation-adjusted dollars, even though net tuition prices - what students are paying after factoring in grants and scholarships - have gone up just 7%, according to College Board and National Center for Education Statistics data analyzed by the Manhattan Institute.

For many public institutions that have been seeing decreases in state funding, the financial picture is worse. The published price for tuition and fees has increased 102% at public four-year institutions, adjusted for inflation, with net tuition and fees at public four-year schools running 115% higher in the last 20 years.

"A lot of times we overestimate the rising cost of college," Levine said. "Because mostly what we do is focus on the sticker price.

But the vast majority of students don't pay the sticker price at public or private schools, he said.

Public institutions have "shifted away from funding through taxpayer support and toward collecting revenue through individual tuition charges," said Akers.

Students from upper-middle class and affluent families who often comprise the governing and media classes are the ones paying full price, Levine noted.

"The discrepancy is that's the price that high-income families have to pay," Levine said.

Administrative costs and facilities

The number of administrative staff added at higher education institutions has outpaced the hiring of teaching faculty in recent decades.

The number of administrators at higher education institutions grew twice as fast in the 25 years ending in 2012 as the number of students did, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting found by analyzing federal data.

And from 2010 to 2018, spending on student services increased 29% and spending on administrative functions increased 19%, while spending on instruction only grew 17%, according to a 2021 report from the American Council on Trustees and Alumni.

Colleges and universities have become more comprehensive in the services that they offer, and in general, students are reaping the benefits, said Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona governor and former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security who was president of the University of California system for seven years.

"I never had students come to me and say, we need fewer Title IX officers, or we need to reduce mental health services or we need to reduce the number of people who help in the financial aid office," said Napolitano, who is now the director of the Center for Security in Politics at the University of California, Berkeley.

"The point being is that over time, as universities have absorbed the cost of providing not just the academic teaching and research aspect of a college education but all the kind of adjunct or associated services that go along with it, that, too, has I think added to the cost."

But administrative spending doesn't account for most of the increase in the sticker price of college, Akers said.

Then, there are the headlines about luxury amenities for students, like lazy rivers at Texas Tech University, or climbing walls at the University of Maryland. But those additions are also facile targets, and still don't come close to explaining the increase in the sticker price for college, Akers said.

Market forces

Higher education is competitive - Harvard and Princeton will always be competing for the same very select pool of the nation's most promising students.

"It's also the case that in some ways higher education doesn't look like a normal market," Levine said.

In a normal market, everyone pays the same price. "Everyone doesn't pay the same price in higher education," Levine said. At many schools, those who can afford less pay less, and at a handful of the nation's most elite schools, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford, students who are accepted and whose family income is under around $60,000 get a free ride.

That lack of price transparency in what the net price will be for a prospective student is aso something that distorts the market, Levine noted, since most college applicants don't know what they'll actually pay until after they're accepted, commit to a university and apply for aid.

Levine created a tool, MyinTuition, through which students can estimate their net tuition cost based on factors like how much their family has in savings and investments, their GPA and their SAT scores. He built the tool when he was trying to figure out how much he would pay for his own kids' college education.

But his website doesn't include the majority of higher education institutions, and the calculator is just an estimate, and isn't binding.

Student loans

Then there are student loans.

"People claim all the time the fact that we've allowed people to borrow so much is driving up the price, and I think there's some truth in that," Akers said.

"It's not really a basic economic argument that the availability of loans has driven up the price, but I think it's more of a behavioral thing."

Millions of Americans will continue to attend college and take on mountains of debt to do so because the financial - and even social - benefits of attending college still generally outweigh the financial cost, Akers and Levine each noted.

"The returns to graduating from college are significant," Levine said. "And simple calculations basically will indicate that for the typical student, attending college definitely pays off relative to its cost."

But "that doesn't mean it pays off for everybody," Levine added.

Men with bachelor's degrees earn about $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than their high school graduate counterparts, according to Social Security Administration data. Women with bachelor's degrees earn $630,000 more during their lifetimes than women with only a high school diploma.

And a 2021 study from Georgetown University found high school graduates make a median of $1.6 million during their lifetimes, compared to $2.8 million for those with bachelor's degrees.

So, over the span of a lifetime, spending say $100,000 for a college education with those returns is a relative "bargain," Akers said.

Millions will continue to pay more and more for college, so long as the benefit generally outweighs the cost. But at some point, "the market forces will continue to drive up the price until it's no longer worth it," Akers said.

Napolitano is skeptical of the Republican argument that universities will use the Biden administration student loan forgiveness as an opportunity to significantly ratchet up prices.

"I think any college president who relies on the assumption that loans in the future will be canceled is living in a fairy land," she said.

Are there any solutions?

Akers said the solution to addressing the ever-increasing cost of college is the opposite of the student loan cancellation the Biden administration is undertaking.

That said, "I don't want to eliminate subsidies," said Akers. "I don't want to eliminate the student loan program."

But graduates who can afford to pay back loans should be required to do so, she said.

One avenue to reducing costs would be cutting the time it takes to obtain a college degree. If students are able to receive college credit for coursework while they're still in high school or even middle school, that would shorten the time they're paying for four-year colleges. Napolitano, for instance, thinks state governments should further incentivize students to attend community college, to attend far less expensive community colleges, both while they're still in high school and after, so they can transfer those credits to a four-year institution.

There also should be more pathways to securing good, well-paying jobs, Akers said, adding she thinks there's "going to be kind of a natural correction," with more employers dropping requirements for college degrees. Some companies have already begun to do that in today's tight labor market. Apprenticeship programs and trades should be celebrated, she argued, saying that political and social leaders need to celebrate those pathways, too.

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Kathryn Watson

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What's behind the sky-high cost of a college education - and are there any solutions?

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The Biden administration's announcement that up to $20,000 in student loan debt will be canceled for borrowers will bring welcome relief to millions, as long as courts allow. But that relief won't do anything to slow the rapidly rising cost of going to college.

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While the net price is what's relevant for understanding college affordability, unfortunately it is not as easy as it should be to find reliable information on net prices and how they have changed over time. To help fill this void, I have been collecting better net price data for selected colleges.

These data confirm that lower- and middle-income students pay a net price that is typically much less than the sticker price. And net prices have actually been falling, on average, in recent years, not rising. But the data also show that the net price many lower-income students must pay is still too high at most institutions. This lack of college affordability for lower-income students, not the dramatic rise in sticker prices which only higher-income students pay, is what should capture our attention.

Net prices have actually been falling, on average, in recent years, not rising.

There are several steps that should be taken to address these problems. First, we need better information regarding college costs that are specific to individuals' financial circumstances. The focus on sticker prices is perhaps understandable since institutions are required by law to report it annually. Net prices are specific to the individual, and generating that information is difficult. Finding better ways to report and track net price is sorely needed. Re-labelling the sticker price as the "maximum cost of attendance" is an easy first step to help clarify misperceptions regarding college pricing. To reduce the net price for lower-income students, increasing the maximum size of Pell Grants (the largest form of federal financial aid that does not need to be repaid) would go a long way towards fixing that problem.

A college education is one of the biggest expenses individuals face during their lives. College is not necessarily right for everyone, but the decision about whether and where to attend college should be based on accurate pricing information. What a student needs to know is not how much college costs in general but how much it will cost them. For most students the sticker price is misleading. Averages are not that informative either since the net price depends on individual circumstances.

Similarly, if policymakers, advocates, and commentators want to understand trends in college affordability over time for different types of students, they need to track net prices, not sticker prices. Almost a decade ago, I wrote about how difficult it is to determine how much colleges charge students with different financial circumstances. In terms of publicly available data, not much has changed since then. Figuring out how much a student can expect to pay to attend different colleges is still too difficult.

The federal government requires higher education institutions to post their "cost of attendance (COA)," an amount sometimes referred to as the "sticker price" that includes tuition, fees, room and board (soon to be relabeled as housing and food), travel, books, and other expenses. But most students pay less than that because they get financial aid. The "net price" is the sticker price minus the total grant aid a student receives (grant aid does not have to be paid back). Many students will qualify for federal student loans and the work-study program, which they can use to cover the net price they are expected to pay.

Any remaining amount not covered by grants, federal student loans, and work-study earnings must be paid for separately by students and their families. These remaining expenses are often referred to as "out-of-pocket" costs because they need to be paid by students and their families directly to the institution (i.e., by "writing a check," back in the day before electronic payment systems). The funds to cover those payments could come from many sources, including savings or other sources of debt (including "Parent PLUS" loans), but out-of-pocket costs represent the additional burden on students and families that are not otherwise accounted for by the financial aid system.

Recognizing the need for more accurate information about how much students can expect to pay for college, the 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act mandated that institutions provide a tool that students could use to estimate their net price based on their personal financial circumstances; these tools are known as "net price calculators." The law also requires institutions to report statistics on the net price paid by their students, overall and separately for specific income ranges. These data are reported on the College Scorecard.

Unfortunately, neither of these data sources has fully solved the problem. Net price calculators do not get the job done. They are often difficult to use and sometimes difficult even to find (which is consistent with my own experience using hundreds of net price calculators multiple times). Net price calculators are a well-intended step in the right direction, but they still have a long way to go. The net price data available at the College Scorecard also fall short. They can give a student some sense of what they might pay, but they do not fully incorporate individual circumstances and some of the data appear to be inaccurate or misleading.

Despite the limitations of the publicly available data, they do provide some useful information on trends in college pricing. For example, Figure 1 shows trends in the average COA and average net price (adjusted for inflation) since 2006-07, separately for public and non-profit private four-year institutions.

Between 2006-07 and 2019-20, COA increased by around 27% at both types of institutions, but declined by 7-8% in the few years after that. The recent decline occurred because colleges posted similar nominal COA increases as in the past, but inflation was higher. Overall, COA increased by almost 20% over those 16 years at both types of institutions.

But average net prices rose at a considerably more modest pace. Between 2006-07 and 2019-20, average net price increased by 13% and 7% at public and private four-year institutions, respectively. Those increases reversed in the post-COVID years. Overall, average net prices are largely unchanged, adjusted for inflation, compared to 2006-07.

But the average net price for all students reported here includes both those who receive financial aid and those who pay full price. Since those who pay full price faced higher prices over time, net prices among those who receive financial aid must have fallen. Without additional information, we cannot say more about how net price changed for different types of students, but the fact that net price is falling for students who receive financial aid is important and not consistent with public perception.

Over the past decade, I have focused on finding ways to construct data that better communicate the level and trend in college costs for students with different financial circumstances. These data cover a more limited set of institutions and time periods than the Department of Education data described above, but they provide a more consistent and accurate picture of changes in net price over time.

I have taken two approaches. First, I draw on detailed data from institutions and the MyinTuition model I developed to track net prices for institutions who agree to participate. The second approach uses the net price calculators described above to track net prices at a random sample of institutions. In both cases, I track net prices for hypothetical dependent students with no siblings in college for three different family income levels (in 2022$): $40,000, $75,000, and $125,000. These incomes correspond roughly to the 25 th, 50 th, and 75 th percentile of the income distribution for families with college-aged children. To estimate net prices, I also assume typical asset levels, adjusted for inflation, at each income level.

Consistent with the average net price data described above, these new data sources show declining net price for lower-income students in recent years. They also highlight ongoing problems with the levels of net prices for many students. Across the board, low- and moderate-income families pay net prices that are well below the posted sticker price; but in many cases, the net prices for these families are still too high. Notably, highly selective private colleges with large endowments have some of the highest sticker prices but the lowest net prices for low-income students.

Almost a decade ago, I wrote about the work I did at Wellesley College to create a simplified tool to estimate college costs based on families' basic financial characteristics. That led to the creation of MyinTuition, which provides estimates of what a students' financial aid award might look like based on data on current students whose families had similar financial characteristics. MyinTuition provides both a best estimate and a 90% confidence interval to convey the uncertainty about the estimate.

MyinTuition uses institution-specific data for each student receiving need-based financial aid to generate its predictions. These data are higher quality than that available from any public source, but they are only available for participating institutions. For this analysis, I focus on 14 of the 78 participating institutions for whom my data extends back to 2015-16. They are all highly selective private non-profit colleges and universities that have large endowments (they would fall in the "private, non-profit, large endowment" category in the analysis described below).

Figure 2 shows trends in the net price for dependent students with no siblings in college at different levels of family income (assuming typical assets and adjusted for inflation). These data are based on MyinTuition's best estimate of net price for these students in each year. Students from middle- and lower-income families now pay less to attend these institutions than they did seven years ago. The trend began before the COVID-19 pandemic and has accelerated since then. At the same time, sticker prices (i.e., COA) initially increased and then reversed, ending the period at roughly the same level as they started.

Figure 2 also demonstrates how the level of sticker price can skew perceptions of college costs. These institutions have among the highest sticker prices in the country-around $80,000 in 2022-2023. This amount is clearly unaffordable for all but high-income families. But those are the only students who are asked to pay that amount. Students with incomes around $40,000 (roughly the bottom quartile of the income distribution) pay a net price of $5,000 on average at these institutions. They could cover that amount through Federal student loans, work study wages, or perhaps a summer job, so families would have to pay little or nothing out-of-pocket in this situation (though the student would have to pay back any student loans with interest).

These institutions can use these pricing strategies because of their large endowments and market power. Their endowments generate revenue through investment returns that help subsidize students. Their market power enables them to charge high sticker prices to high-income students, which also helps subsidize attendance of lower-income students. This is not a pricing strategy that most institutions can pursue.

Despite their flaws, data from net price calculators can also be used to understand college pricing. Generating these data requires physical entry of relevant values into each net price calculator, including different income and asset levels in each one. My research team and I undertook this time-consuming analysis, collecting data for 200 randomly selected institutions, 50 from each of four categories: (1) private, non-profit colleges with large endowments, (2) other private, non-profit colleges, (3) public flagship and other "R1" institutions (four-year colleges with significant research activity), and (4) other public institutions. I focus here on the change between 2018-19 and 2022-23.

The results shown in Figure 3 shows the inflation-adjusted percent change in net price for the four types of institutions and at the three levels of family income, as well as the full COA. COA fell 5-10% across all types of institutions, with the largest decline among public flagships/R1s. Net prices fell even more: In all institution types, aside from other public institutions, net prices declined by about 10-15%. Net prices at other public institutions also declined but somewhat less, by about 5-10%.

Declining net prices are good news for students and their families, but these data also point to ongoing affordability problems for lower-income students. Table 1 shows the levels of net price for students by family income level for 2018-19 and 2022. For lower-income families with income around $40,000, public institutions still charge these students a net price of around $14,000 on average. That is around $1,000 less than what they charged 4 years ago. It is also much less than the sticker prices of roughly $25,000 to $30,000.

But net prices are still too much for these lower-income families to afford. Students in that income range would also be eligible for Federal Student Loans of $5,500 in each of their first two years in college and for employment supported by the Federal Work-Study Program, which typically amounts to about $2,500. These two additional forms of federal financial aid can contribute $8,000 towards the cost of college. That still leaves a gap of $6,000 that these students or their families would need to pay out of their own pockets. With a family income of $40,000 and limited assets, out-of-pocket payments of that size represent a substantial obstacle to college access.

Private institutions with large endowments come closer to filling the gap. Low-income students at those institutions would have out-of-pocket expenses of $2,700, around half the level at public institutions. Other private institutions, though, leave a gaping hole in affordability, with remaining expenses of around $13,000 that are clearly unaffordable for these students.

Colleges and universities surely have social objectives, but they also face budget constraints and make pricing decisions in line with their business interests. What is changing in the market for higher education that is leading to these patterns in college pricing?

Inflation has played an important role. In the decade prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, sticker prices at four-year institutions increased about 3% per year, on average; that was about 1.5% above the average rate of inflation. In the post-COVID era, though, inflation increased, hitting 7% in 2021 and 6.5% in 2022. In a low-inflation environment, sticker price increases on the order of 3% may fly under the radar, even though they correspond to modest increases in inflation-adjusted terms. But sticker price increases greater than today's much-higher rate of inflation would appear very large even if the real increase, after adjusting for inflation, was the same as before. To avoid public backlash, institutions mostly increased their sticker prices at rates comparable to earlier nominal increases. That led to the inflation-adjusted decline in sticker prices shown in the data above.

But that real decline in sticker prices reduces revenue to the institution that needs to be made up somehow to meet rapidly rising costs. One potential approach to filling that gap is to reduce financial aid, increasing the cost for lower-income students. The lack of transparency in the financial aid system would mask those cost increases.

Colleges do not appear to have taken that approach in the last few years. One possible explanation is that institutions had other sources of revenue that were able to fill those gaps. Stimulus funding provided by the federal government to states and to higher education institutions may have prevented colleges from reducing financial aid and/or increasing sticker prices to cover rising costs. It remains an open question how college pricing will respond now that those federal funds are no longer available.

The situation is somewhat different at highly selective institutions, which typically meet the full financial need of their students. This means that students and their families pay an amount out-of-pocket based on what a formula says they can afford (based on FAFSA and the CSS Profile, an additional financial aid application run by the College Board used by some colleges). Students are also often expected to take out some student loans and participate in work-study, but they will not be expected to contribute more out-of-pocket than the formula says they can afford.

Low- and moderate-income families pay net prices that are well below the posted sticker price; but in many cases, the net prices for these families are still too high.

Based on the MyinTuition data for 14 such colleges, net prices for lower- and middle-income students have fallen considerably since 2015-16. For families with incomes around $40,000, their net price has fallen by 23% after adjusting for inflation. For $75,000 and $125,000 income families, net price has fallen 22% and 14%, respectively. Much of that decline is driven by the fact that the expected work-study earnings and loans have been largely fixed in nominal dollars over that period, declining in real terms. At institutions that meet full need, declines in the real value of student loans or work-study earnings need to be matched by greater grant aid, not by increasing out-of-pocket cost. Greater grant aid drives down real net prices. Some of these institutions have also adopted more generous financial aid policies that have also contributed to this decline.

Pricing at most institutions that do not meet full need is more complicated. Families are often expected to pay out-of-pocket more than the formula says they can afford. How much more depends on institutional policy. Those institutions, though, also include work-study jobs and loans in their financial aid packages, which are part of how students are expected to cover their net price. Again, these values have largely been fixed in nominal dollars and contribute to falling net prices at these institutions.

Despite the public focus on sticker prices, discussions regarding college pricing should emphasize college affordability for lower- and moderate-income students more. This means focusing on net prices, which, for low-income students, are much lower than sticker prices. Without diminishing the difficulties that higher-income students may face in paying for college, the struggles lower- and moderate-income students experience are considerably greater.

Elsewhere, I have argued for doubling the Pell Grant to help overcome this problem. In addition to more financial support for low-income students, we need to address the lack of transparency in college pricing. Data on trends in college pricing needs to better represent the costs that lower- and moderate-income students face. Without such data, students, families, and policymakers cannot easily recognize the magnitude and nature of the college affordability problem, and efforts to fix it are often misdirected.

Ironically, our recent bout with inflation has lowered net prices for college for all students. At highly selective institutions, that decline appears to have started earlier for all but higher-income students. It remains to be seen whether these trends continue, not just for sticker prices but for the net prices that lower- and moderate-income students face. If we do not find better ways to track college costs for students with different family financial circumstances, we will not easily know if that happened. Students and their families will continue to make one of the most important financial decisions of their lives half in the dark.
The Brookings Institution is financed through the support of a diverse array of foundations, corporations, governments, individuals, as well as an endowment. A list of donors can be found in our annual reports published online here. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions in this report are solely those of its author(s) and are not influenced by any donation.

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College prices aren't skyrocketing-but they're still too high for some | Brookings

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Discussions about the rising cost of college routinely miss the point. At four-year public and private institutions, the total cost of attendance almost tripled between 1979-80 and 2020-21, accounting for inflation. But only students from higher-income families pay that full cost, or "sticker price," featured in headlines.

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US Department of Health and Human Services

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Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH)

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Surgeon General Issues New Advisory About Effects Social Media Use Has on Youth Mental Health

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Surgeon General Urges Action to Ensure Social Media Environments are Healthy and Safe, as Previously-Advised National Youth Mental Health Crisis Continues

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Research is focused on child and teen mental health, exploring why they are struggling and what can be done to help them

Cite this

Abrams, Z. (2023, January 1). Kids' mental health is in crisis. Here's what psychologists are doing to help. Monitor on Psychology, 54(1). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/01/trends-improving-youth-mental-health

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The Covid-19 pandemic era ushered in a new set of challenges for youth in the United States, leading to a mental health crisis as declared by the United States surgeon general just over a year ago. But U.S. children and teens have been suffering for far longer.

In the 10 years leading up to the pandemic, feelings of persistent sadness and hopelessness-as well as suicidal thoughts and behaviors-increased by about 40% among young people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.

"We're seeing really high rates of suicide and depression, and this has been going on for a while," said psychologist Kimberly Hoagwood, PhD, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine. "It certainly got worse during the pandemic."

In addition to the social isolation and academic disruption nearly all children and teens faced, many also lost caregivers to Covid-19, had a parent lose their job, or were victims of physical or emotional abuse at home.

All these difficulties, on top of growing concerns about social media, mass violence, natural disasters, climate change, and political polarization-not to mention the normal ups and downs of childhood and adolescence-can feel insurmountable for those who work with kids.

"The idea of a 'mental health crisis' is really broad. For providers and parents, the term can be anxiety-provoking," said Melissa Brymer, PhD, who directs terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. "Part of our role is to highlight specific areas that are critical in this discussion."

Across the field, psychologists are doing just that. In addition to studying the biological, social, and structural contributors to the current situation, they are developing and disseminating solutions to families, in schools, and at the state level. They're exploring ways to improve clinical training and capacity and working to restructure policies to support the most vulnerable children and teens.

Psychologists were also behind new mental health recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a group of volunteer health professionals who evaluate evidence on various preventive health services. The task force now recommends regular anxiety screenings for youth ages 8 to 18 and regular depression screenings for adolescents ages 12 to 18.

"I see these trends in children's mental health problems as being critical, but there are solutions," Hoagwood said. "If we refocus our efforts toward those solutions, we could see some of these tides turn."

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Sources of stress

Across the United States, more than 200,000 children lost a parent or primary caregiver to Covid-19 ("Covid-19 Orphanhood," Imperial College London, 2022). In the face of those losses, families had to curtail mourning rituals and goodbye traditions because of social distancing requirements and other public health measures, Brymer said. Many children are still grieving, sometimes while facing added challenges such as moving to a different home or transferring to a new school with unfamiliar peers.

The CDC also reports that during the pandemic, 29% of U.S. high school students had a parent or caregiver who lost their job, 55% were emotionally abused by a parent or caregiver, and 11% were physically abused (Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey-United States, January-June 2021, CDC).

"Schools are crucial for keeping kids safe and connecting them with services, but the pandemic completely disrupted those kinds of supports," Brymer said.

Those extreme disruptions didn't affect all young people equally. Echoing pre-Covid-19 trends, the CDC also found that girls, LGBTQ+ youth, and those who have experienced racism were more likely to have poor mental health during the pandemic, said social psychologist Kathleen Ethier, PhD, director of the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health.

Contributing factors likely include stigma, discrimination, and online bullying, Ethier said. Female students also report much higher levels of sexual violence than their male peers, which can further harm mental health.

As much hardship as Covid-19 wrought, it's far from the only factor contributing to the current crisis. Biology also appears to play a role. The age of puberty has been dropping for decades, especially in girls, likely leading to difficulty processing complex feelings and knowing what to do about them ( Eckert-Lind, C., et al., JAMA Pediatrics, Vol. 174, No. 4, 2020). In early puberty, regions of the brain linked to emotions and social behavior are developing more quickly than regions responsible for the cognitive control of behavior, such as the prefrontal cortex, Ethier said.

Those developmental changes drive young people to seek attention and approval from their peers. For some, using social media fulfills that need in a healthy way, providing opportunities for connection and validation to youth who may be isolated from peers, geographically or otherwise.

For others, negative messages-including online bullying and unrealistic standards around physical appearance-appear to have a detrimental effect, but more research is needed to understand who is most at risk.

"There is clearly some aspect of young people's online life that's contributing [to the mental health crisis], we just don't know exactly what that is," said Ethier.

Finally, structural factors that affect millions of U.S. children, including poverty, food insecurity, homelessness, and lack of access to health care and educational opportunities, can lead to stress-response patterns that are known to underlie mental health challenges.

"Even in very young children, prolonged stress can trigger a cycle of emotion-regulation problems, which can in turn lead to anxiety, depression, and behavioral difficulties," Hoagwood said. "These things are well established, but we're not doing enough as a field to address them."

Building capacity in schools

The biggest challenge facing mental health care providers right now, experts say, is a shortage of providers trained to meet the mounting needs of children and adolescents.

"There's a growing recognition that mental health is just as important as physical health in young people's development, but that's happening just as mental health services are under extreme strain," said clinical psychologist Robin Gurwitch, PhD, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center.

Schools, for example, are a key way to reach and help children-but a 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that only about half of U.S. public schools offer mental health assessments and even fewer offer treatment services. Psychologists are now ramping up efforts to better equip schools to support student well-being onsite.

Much of that work involves changing policies at the school or district level to provide more support for all students. For example, school connectedness-the degree to which young people feel that adults and peers at school care about them and are invested in their success-is a key contributor to mental health. Youth who felt connected during middle and high school have fewer problems with substance use, mental health, suicidality, and risky sexual behavior as adults ( Steiner, R. J., et al., Pediatrics, Vol. 144, No. 1, 2019).

Through its What Works in Schools program, the CDC funds school districts to make changes that research shows foster school connectedness. Those include improving classroom management, implementing service-learning programs for students in their communities, bringing mentors from the community into schools, and making schools safer and more supportive for LGBTQ+ students.

Psychologists are also building training programs to help teachers and other school staff create supportive classrooms and aid students who are in distress. Classroom Wise (Well-Being Information and Strategies for Educators), developed by the Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network and the University of Maryland's National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH), is a free, flexible online course and resource library that draws on psychological research on social-emotional learning, behavioral regulation, mental health literacy, trauma, and more ( Evidence-Based Components of Classroom Wise (PDF, 205KB), NCSMH, 2021).

"We're using evidence-based practices from child and adolescent mental health but making these strategies readily available for teachers to apply in the classroom," said clinical psychologist Nancy Lever, PhD, codirector of NCSMH, who helped develop Classroom Wise.

The course incorporates the voices of students and educators and teaches actionable strategies such as how to create rules and routines that make classrooms feel safe and how to model emotional self-regulation. The strategies can be used by anyone who interacts with students, from teachers and administrators to school nurses, coaches, and bus drivers.

"What we need is to build capacity through all of the systems that are part of children's lives-in families, in schools, in the education of everybody who interacts with children," said psychologist Ann Masten, PhD, a professor of child development at the University of Minnesota.

Other training efforts focus on the students themselves. Given that preteens and teenagers tend to seek support from their peers before turning to adults, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) created conversation cards to equip kids with basic skills for talking about suicide. The advice, available in English and Spanish, includes how to ask about suicidal thoughts, how to listen without judgment, and when to seek guidance from an adult ( Talking About Suicide With Friends and Peers, NCTSN, 2021).

While training people across the school population to spot and address mental health concerns can help reduce the strain on mental health professionals, there will always be a subset of students who need more specialized support.

Telehealth, nearly ubiquitous these days, is one of the best ways to do that. In South Carolina, psychologist Regan Stewart, PhD, and her colleagues colaunched the Telehealth Outreach Program at the Medical University of South Carolina in 2015. Today, nearly every school in the state has telehealth equipment (Wi-Fi and tablets or laptops that kids can use at school or take home) and access to providers (psychology and social work graduate students and clinicians trained in trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy). Students who need services, which are free thanks to grant funding or covered by Medicaid, meet one-on-one with their clinician during the school day or after hours (American Psychologist, Vol. 75, No. 8, 2020).

"We learned a lot about the use of technology during the pandemic," Ethier said. "At this point, it's very much a matter of having sufficient resources so more school districts can access those sources of care."

Expanding the workforce

Limited resources are leaving families low on options, with some young people making multiple trips to the emergency room for mental health-related concerns or spending more than six months on a waiting list for mental health support. That points to a need for more trained emergency responders and psychiatric beds, psychologists say, but also for better upstream screening and prevention to reduce the need for intensive care.

"Just as we need more capacity for psychiatric emergencies in kids, we also need an infusion of knowledge and ordinary strategies to support mental health on the positive side," Masten said.

In New York, Hoagwood helped launch the state-funded Evidence Based Treatment Dissemination Center in 2006, which offers free training on evidence-based practices for trauma, behavioral and attention problems, anxiety, depression, and more to all mental health professionals who work with children in state-licensed programs, which include foster care, juvenile justice, and school settings, among others. The center provides training on a core set of tools known as PracticeWise ( Chorpita, B. F., & Daleiden E. L., Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 77, No. 3, 2009). It also offers tailored training based on requests from community agency leaders and clinicians who provide services to children and their families.

Hoagwood, in collaboration with a consortium of family advocates, state officials, and researchers, also helped build and test a state-approved training model and credentialing program for family and youth peer advocates. The peer advocate programs help expand the mental health workforce while giving families access to peers who have similar lived experience ( Psychiatric Services, Vol. 71, No. 5, 2020).

Youth peer advocates are young adults who have personal experience with systems such as foster care, juvenile justice, or state psychiatric care. They work within care teams to provide basic education and emotional support to other youth, such as giving advice on what questions to ask a new mental health practitioner and explaining the differences between psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers. Youth peer advocates in New York can now receive college credit for their training in peer specialist work.

"Making community health work into a viable career can also increase diversity among mental health workers and help us address structural racism," Hoagwood said.

Pediatricians are another group that can provide a first line of defense, drawing on their relationships with parents to destigmatize mental health care.

"Pediatricians are in many ways uniquely positioned to help address the mental health crisis in youth," said Janine A. Rethy, MD, MPH, division chief of community pediatrics at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine. "We have the privilege of building long-term relationships with children and their families over many years," with at least 12 well-child checkups in just the first three years of a child's life, followed by annual visits.

During these visits, they can watch for warning signs of social and behavioral problems and screen for maternal depression and other issues in parents, which is now recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (PDF, 660KB). Several new resources provide guidance for integrating mental health care into pediatric practices, including the Behavioral Health Integration Compendium (PDF, 4.1MB) and the Healthy Steps program. But most pediatricians need more education on mental health issues in order to effectively respond, Rethy said-yet another area where psychologists may be able to help. Psychologists can provide direct consultations and training to pediatricians through the Pediatric Mental Health Care Access program.

"The more we can weave mental health knowledge, capacity, and checkpoints into places where parents feel comfortable-like the doctor's office and at school-the better," Masten said. "All professionals who work with young people really need the knowledge that's being generated by psychologists."

11 emerging trends for 2023

Further reading

Science shows how to protect kids' mental health, but it's being ignored
Prinstein, M., & Ethier, K. A., Scientific American, 2022

How pediatricians can help mitigate the mental health crisis
Rethy, J. A., & Chawla, E. M., Contemporary Pediatrics, 2022

Review: Structural racism, children's mental health service systems, and recommendations for policy and practice change
Alvarez, K., et al., Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2022

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Kids' mental health is in crisis. Here's what psychologists are doing to help

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Research is focused on child and teen mental health, exploring why they are struggling and what can be done to help them

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Bill will create complaint system, state intervention to thwart FAIR Act violations

Credit: AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File

Credit: AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File

Three months ago, in a confrontation over the inclusion of LGBTQ+ content, Gov. Gavin Newsom warned the politically conservative Temecula Valley Unified school board that either it replaces an outdated history social studies textbook for elementary school students or the state would buy an updated version on the district's dime, and fine it for its recalcitrance.

There was no High Noon, as it turned out. The school board backed down within days and agreed to purchase a more inclusive textbook that a committee of 47 Temecula Valley teachers had recommended.

But Newsom is about to gain the formal authority to head off similar actions by other like-minded school boards. On Thursday, the Legislature passed Assembly Bill 1078, which his advisers helped craft. The nearly party-line votes of 30-9 in the Senate and 55-16 in the Assembly provided the two-thirds "urgency" margin the governor wanted for the bill to take effect as soon as he signs it.

The bill, authored by first-term Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Perris, in Riverside County, would expand existing state law, including the 2011 FAIR Act , which requires instructional materials to accurately portray the history, viewpoints and experiences of California's diverse and underrepresented racial, ethnic, and other groups, including LGBTQ+ Californians. It says that school boards that refuse to include materials or remove library books or textbooks that would interfere with the FAIR Act would be committing censorship and discrimination.

"Schools may not adopt textbooks or other materials or sponsor instruction or activities that promote discriminatory bias against or reflect adversely on persons" on a range of characteristics, including race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender identity, gender expression, and religion, wrote Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, a sponsor of AB 1078, in a June 1 letter that referred to the FAIR Act . It was sent to all county and district superintendents and charter school administrators.

AB 1078 would create a new complaint process for parents and other residents to ask the state superintendent of public instruction to investigate and overrule a board's book ban if found to violate the FAIR Act or other anti-discrimination laws. California school librarians report that orders to remove books more often come not from school boards but from principals pressured by parents angered by sexually graphic novels or what they consider age-inappropriate books on gender.

In a situation where the superintendent determines that a district school board failed to provide students with sufficient instructional materials in order to avoid FAIR Act compliance, the state department of education would order and provide the textbooks that students needed and fine the district.

Newsom praised the quick passage of the bill Thursday, saying it would send a message to school boards not to put their own political agenda ahead of the education rights of children.

"California is the true freedom state: a place where families - not political fanatics - have the freedom to decide what's right for them," Newsom said. "With the passage of this legislation that bans book bans and ensures all students have textbooks, our state's Family Agenda is now even stronger. All students deserve the freedom to read and learn about the truth, the world, and themselves."

But Bill Essayli, a first-term Republican assemblymember from Norco, in Riverside County, said that the real intruders on freedom are Newsom and state leaders who are running roughshod over school boards that families chose to elect.

"You have Sacramento politicians who do not like decisions being made by duly elected school boards, and are trying to erode their control and attack their authority," Essayli said. "This should be viewed as nothing short of an attack on democracy. And that's something that we must be very vigilant of."

While Newsom had Temecula Valley and rear-guard tactics of conservative boards in mind, the new complaint system could prompt people with opposite politics to demand action against materials and curriculums they claim are discriminatory. Jewish groups have characterized Santa Ana Unified's ethnic studies treatment of the Arab-Israeli struggle as anti-Semitic. The newly formed Los Angeles-based Coalition for Empowered Education , which says it opposes "dogmatic, politicized agendas in K-12 education across the country," could be motivated to file complaints of bias in the Liberated Ethnic Studies curriculums adopted by some California districts.

Jackson said he foresees complaints against districts that have banned the teaching of critical race theory, a school of thought that analyzes white privilege and the persistent and enduring forms of institutionalized racism. Jackson said districts are banning critical race theory as a means to suppress honest discussions of race. But only an investigation could establish a school board's true intention, he said.

The problem, Essayli countered, is that "the complaint process is extremely subjective. It puts the determination in the hands of another politician (the state superintendent of public instruction) who has political motives." Disputes like these should be done by an impartial judge through a lawsuit, he said.

Troy Flint, the school boards association's chief information officer, said the uncertain scenarios that the bill could produce are a reason CSBA opposed the bill.

"There are a number of different ways that people could apply this law beyond what was intended. That's a byproduct of the fact that AB 1078 was reactive," he said.

Flint said the school boards association is troubled that complainants will be able to file directly with the state superintendent, who could intervene without giving school boards an opportunity to respond before making a finding.

Jackson said he wasn't concerned about people filing complaints. "I really think that no matter what a parent's concerns are, they deserve to be investigated. Now, they might not like the outcome of the investigation. But this is not meant to exclude people."

He said he would watch the complaint process unfold. "If the state superintendent or the governor feels like this is becoming a problem, then we will address it with cleanup language next year," he said.

Incensed by Temecula Valley's board

Newsom was drawn into the issue by the resistance of Temecula Valley's newly conservative majority to buy an urgently needed new history-social studies series.

Related

Temecula Valley Unified reverses course and adopts state-approved social studies curriculum

The committee of teachers and parents who volunteered to review proposed textbooks had vetted and recommended Social Studies Alive! Its fourth-grade textbook on California history included a section on the gay rights movement, including the struggle for gay marriage. The majority said they opposed "sexualized" materials for elementary students and the inclusion in a teacher's guide of material on gay rights activist Harvey Milk, the first gay elected official in California, whom board President Joseph Komrosky denigrated as a pedophile.

The board's plan to delay that approval meant Temecula Valley would have begun the year with a 17-year-old out-of-print textbook with insufficient copies for every student, a violation of state law. The state already had the authority to order new textbooks and charge the district in such a situation.

The delay also created a dilemma for teachers. As Carolyn Thomas, a Temecula Valley Unified teacher, told EdSource in May, "We also find ourselves in the precarious position of determining how to teach the required state standards while simultaneously complying with our employer's decision to restrict us from teaching about the historical contributions of diverse individuals."

AB 1078 would additionally impose a financial penalty, not for a FAIR Act violation per se, but for a district's intentional inaction to provide all students with enough textbooks at the start of a year. The penalty would amount to what a district received a decade ago when the state still earmarked funding for textbooks and materials, adjusted for inflation. The Legislative Analyst's Office estimated that would amount this year, in today's dollars, to about $95 per student or $950,000 for an average district with 10,000 students. For 27,000-student Temecula Valley, that would have been about $2.6 million.

Jackson said he believes other districts with "extremist" boards have adopted Temecula Valley's strategy of delay - ignoring buying new textbooks because they include covering the deep history of racism in America and perspectives on ethnicity and gender. "So they are gaming the system," he said.

Essayli said that Jackson is reading into their motives, and "I don't think that is proper to do."

AB 1078 had the support of the California Federation of Teachers, the ACLU and some organizations advocating for students of color. Opponents included the county school boards in County and Placer counties, the California Policy Center and the state school boards association.
To get more reports like this one, click here to sign up for EdSource's no-cost daily email on latest developments in education.

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Gov. Newsom poised to sign legislation to counter book bans and school boards' censorship

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Assembly Bill 1078 was written in response to anticipated book banning and tactics of conservative boards, but parents with different politics will be able to file complaints, too.

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School book bans and restrictions in the U.S. rose 33% in the last school year, according to a new report from the free speech group PEN America, continuing what it calls a worrisome effort aimed at the "suppression of stories and ideas." Florida had more bans than any other state.

Overall, PEN America said it found 3,362 cases of book bans, up from 2,532 bans in the 2021-'22 school year.

The organization counts any move that restricts access to a book as a ban, including books removed from classrooms or libraries or both, as well as books temporarily removed while they're being challenged.

If you count only the books that have been permanently removed from school libraries and classrooms, the report's lead author, Kasey Meehan, says the increase is even more alarming. That number has quadrupled - to 1,263 books in the last school year from 333 the year before.

"We keep wondering if we've reached the peak yet," Meehan says. "And all signals suggest that there's still growing momentum, and it really is against kind of public opinion."

Recent NPR/Ipsos polling found that 64% of Americans oppose book bans by school boards, and 69% oppose book bans by state lawmakers. But PEN says book banning efforts are being "supercharged" by local and national coordinated pressure campaigns and by punitive state laws, which are having a chilling effect on teachers and librarians.

Just under half the books involved deal with violence or physical abuse, including sexual assault; a little less than a third focus on LGBTQ+ identities; and nearly a third include characters of color and themes of race or racism.

The restrictions came disproportionately from Florida, which accounts for more than 40% of book bans in the last school year, or 1,406 instances. Texas was next with 625, followed by Missouri, Utah and Pennsylvania.

Those pushing book restrictions say they're happening more often because there is a growing number of inappropriate books in schools.

"Of course, it's going to explode," says Michelle Beavers, a member of a local Moms for Liberty chapter in Florida. "Once you show people what's in their kids' schools, their mouths drop ... and they feel compelled to do something."

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School book bans show no signs of slowing, new PEN America report finds

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The number of bans and restrictions in the U.S. rose 33% in the last school year, according the the report. Florida had more bans than any other state.

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Book challenges across the country hit a record high in the last academic school year as public schools and libraries have been targeted by continued efforts to censor books, according to new reports released this week.

Although book censorship isn't a new issue, the United States has seen an escalation in book bans and attempted bans since 2021. A majority of the targeted books were written by or about a person of color, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, or a woman, according to reports released from the American Library Association and PEN America, a free speech advocacy group.

The ALA and PEN America reports noted that the challenges come amid a growing climate of censorship. Unlike most book challenges in the past, recent efforts have sought to remove or restrict multiple titles instead of a single book, the reports said.

And the challenges continue to spread through "coordinated campaigns by a vocal minority of groups" and "increasingly, as a result of pressure from state legislation," according to the PEN America report.

Incidents over the last two years have drawn national attention and scrutiny from advocates who say book bans are an attack on students' freedoms and people's constitutional rights. Educators and librarians have been put in the spotlight over book censorship disputes, as some have faced attacks or threats for publicly defending access to these materials.

"The freedom to read is an essential democratic principle. Children deserve to see themselves, their families, and communities in books," Kasey Meehan, PEN America's Freedom to Read project director and lead author of the report, told USA TODAY. "Children who encounter a story that is different than their own can build empathy and understanding, and are better prepared to live in a diverse democracy."

"This is why we should not see book bans, which have escalated dramatically in the last year and a half, simply as a concern for parents and teachers, but for all of us invested in the next generation of active, informed citizens in a democracy," Meehan added.
'Don't give an inch on this':Lawmakers argue over book bans in heated hearing
ALA, PEN America findings revealed dramatic increase in book bans

In the first eight months of 2023, the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom reported nearly 700 attempts to censor library materials - challenging more than 1,900 "unique" or individual titles. The number of titles targeted marked a 20% jump from the same time period last year, according to the ALA report.

While school libraries and classrooms have long been the predominant target for book removals, the ALA said 2023 reports showed a near-equal division between schools and libraries open to the general public. Challenges to materials in public libraries accounted for 49% of incidents documented, compared to 16% in 2022, the ALA said.

The ALA defines a challenge as a "formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness." But the association noted that report is "only a snapshot of book censorship throughout the year" because the data is compiled from media accounts and reports submitted by librarians, leaving many incidents undocumented.

The PEN America report found that book bans in public K-12 schools have only continued to intensify in recent years.

In the last academic school year, from July 1, 2022, to June 31, 2023, the advocacy organization recorded more than 3,000 instances of book bans in US public school classrooms and libraries. Book challenges rose by 30% in the 2022-23 academic year, compared to bans in the 2021-22 school year.

PEN America defines a challenge as any action taken against a book that removes or restricts access to the material.

Most challenged books were written by or about women, people of color or LGBTQ+ people, according to the report. And targeted books often contained material that was perceived as "sexual" or "age inappropriate," the report said.

Overall, the report found that more than 1,500 unique book titles were removed in the last school year. The organization reported that book bans happened in 153 districts across 33 states.

Over 40% of all book bans occurred in school districts in Florida, according to the report. Compared to any other state, Florida had the highest number of book bans, with over 1,400 recorded cases, and the largest number of school districts to remove books.
Book bans: In 3 years, 60 texts have been challenged in Iowa schools. A new law could ban more.
Florida was followed by Texas, which had 625 book bans; Missouri, which had 333 book bans; Utah, which had 281 book bans; and Pennsylvania, which had 186 book bans, the report said.

Recent book challenge incidents

Disputes over book challenges have caused attacks against teachers and librarians over the last year. And recent challenges have often originated from conservative organizations that have pushed for nationwide banning efforts and called for more parental control over school materials.

At Chapin High School in South Carolina, some students alleged that a teacher made them feel "ashamed to be Caucasian" for assigning Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me," a letter to his son about his perception of being Black in America. The school removed the book from the syllabus.

At Hamshire-Fannett Independent School District in Texas, a teacher was removed from an eighth grade classroom after allowing students to read an adaptation of "The Diary of Anne Frank," which included sexual content. The district said the book was not approved to be read in the class.

In Front Royal, Virginia, a county board of supervisors voted to withhold a large percentage of funding for the Samuels Public Library in response to conservative complaints about books with LGBTQ+ characters.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Some attacks have also affected the ALA. The ALA's opposition to bannings has led some communities to withdraw their membership.

"These attacks on our freedom to read should trouble every person who values liberty and our constitutional rights," Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, said in a press release Wednesday. "To allow a group of people or any individual, no matter how powerful or loud, to become the decision-maker about what books we can read or whether libraries exist, is to place all of our rights and liberties in jeopardy."

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Book bans continue to rise in US public schools, libraries: 'Attacks on our freedom'

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Although book censorship isn't a new issue, the United States has seen an escalation in book bans and attempted bans since 2021.

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Challenges to library books continue at record pace in 2023, American Library Association reports

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The nationwide surge in book bannings continues. The American Library Association is reporting that challenges to books in schools and public libraries will likely reach record highs in 2023, topping what had been a record pace in 2022.

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Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the U.S. labor market with advanced language capabilities and automation to enhance work options, but a couple of recent studies have found certain trends in the workplace that could shape the future of work in America.

During the COVID pandemic, from 2019 to 2022, the labor market saw 8.6 occupational shifts with most people leaving food services, in-person sales and office support for other occupations, according to a new report by McKinsey Global Institute.

The study suggests that positions that declined and flourished during the pandemic will keep that trend moving forward. The data expects an additional 12 million occupational shifts may be possible in the next seven years.

Health, STEM, transportation, warehousing, business and legal professionals are projected to be growing under AI, while office support, customer service, sales, production work and food services are the worst impacted by AI acceleration, based on the research.

Jobs remaining strong with a slower growth trajectory are creatives, art management, property maintenance, education, builders, community service, agriculture and mechanics.

"It's definitely a very powerful tool. Not sure how it's going to affect the future, but definitely something to keep in mind," Martha Yin, an investment banker in New York City, said to NBC New York.

News

The survey found that workers are willing to pivot career paths, while tighter labor markets encourage companies to hire broadly. Position shifts in food and customer services accounted for 2.5 million changes in occupation.

Fast food counter workers, cooks, waitstaff, retail sales, cashiers and hairstylists are just a few of the most common jobs that people decided to leave to pursue something else.

"No, I don't think AI is going to be that intense. Before it [AI] takes over police officers, I think that's going to take a lot more time because I think that's a little too crazy," said Jonathon Cruz, a New Jersey state trooper.

AI tools can identify data patterns, write code, design and strategize with or without human help. With this technology, about 30% of hours currently worked could be automated by 2030, based on the data.

The research stated workers earning less than $40,000 per year are up to 14 times more likely to change occupations by the end of the decade than higher-paid earners.

While the McKinsey Global Institute projects certain occupational shifts due to AI, another recent analysis shows U.S. workers are hopeful concerning the AI impacts.

About a fifth of U.S. workers are considered to have "high exposure" to AI, particularly workers who identify as women, Asian, college-educated and high-paid workers, according to the Pew Research Center.

The top industries with the most exposure to AI are science, technology, finance, insurance, real estate and public administration. The industries with the least exposure are managerial, administrative and food services, based on Pew Research.

The Pew survey showed that workers more likely to see AI exposure do not necessarily feel their jobs are at risk. About one-in-four workers in professional, scientific and technical services believe AI will help more than hurt them, with about 20% of workers in government, public administration and military polling the same.

Yin and fellow investment banker, Niko Molina, both shared with NBC New York that they do not feel threatened by AI in their employment, especially as banking relies on building client relationships.

In contrast, four-in-ten workers in hospitality, services and arts are not sure about the influence of AI on their jobs.

"I think it [AI] can change the future, but it could also have a negative impact on the public," William Lee, a sneaker business owner, told News 4.

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Will AI replace your job? New study reveals the professions most at-risk by 2030

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Generative artificial intelligence is shaping the future of the U.S. labor force in ways that can impact career paths and industries moving forward, based on two new studies.

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Johnny C. Taylor Jr. tackles your human resources questions as part of a series for USA TODAY. Taylor is president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, the world's largest HR professional society and author of "Reset: A Leader's Guide to Work in an Age of Upheaval."
Have a question? Submit it here.
Question: With the proliferation of generative AI, I am worried about being replaced. Do you expect the additional productivity AI creates to displace workers? What can I do to ensure I am seen as a valued employee? - Whitney
Answer: I can understand why you, or any of us, may be apprehensive about being displaced by artificial intelligence! New research reveals that nearly one-quarter (23%) of U.S. workers are concerned that workplace automation will replace their job in the next five years. Workplace automation has already impacted nearly 10% of U.S. workers. AI may displace some jobs, but it is just as likely to result in the creation of new jobs too. Remember that AI is designed to help us, not to replace human connection. AI isn't all-encompassing; it has its limits. Work will always need the human component because what we create and produce ultimately serves other humans.

Even before AI existed, there have always been steps employees could take to demonstrate their value to their organization. That will not change. For instance, you can take on new assignments or projects and volunteer to help wherever needed. Do more than asked and do it well. And be on the lookout for more efficient or cost-effective ways of doing things in your job.

It's also essential to continue to learn and grow your skills by taking classes, receiving training, or taking advantage of other professional development opportunities. Be a problem solver and share your ideas with your manager.

Make no mistake, AI will be a reality. We can choose to run from it and limit our opportunities and growth or embrace it to expand our performance, productivity and potential. Careers aren't linear, so our skill sets shouldn't be static. The world of work will need people to develop the knowledge and expertise to manage, monitor and measure the output of AI. Explore how AI may be relevant in your role and career. Be proactive and talk with your supervisor about AI and how to better serve customers, clients and the organization.

AI is not going anywhere anytime soon, so now is a pivotal time for us to figure out how to leverage AI to our advantage. Don't let fear of technology blind you to the opportunities it presents for your growth and advancement.
Job search Mean boss? Here's how to deal with a difficult or toxic manager: Ask HR How deep should I go when discussing a contentious job separation? Ask HR
How will my lack of a formal university degree affect my chances of obtaining a new position in the HR field, despite having 15 years of experience as an HR generalist and director and certifications? - Kelley

The challenges you face may depend on the level of HR job you are interested in. Sometimes higher-level HR jobs require a degree, but not always. Your substantial experience, along with your certifications, can offset not having a degree. Research suggests 9 out of 10 employers report being ready to accept candidates without a four-year college degree. In addition, the study also found 66% of employers are open to hiring candidates with a recognized certification.

Once you identify a position of interest, review the minimum position requirements. The job posting may list a degree, but if it also includes the words "desired" or "preferred," then the degree is not a requirement. Tailor your resume specific to the job you are applying for and highlight how your experience directly matches what the company is looking for, such as the skills, knowledge, and abilities to perform certain HR functions. And highlight your achievements in 15 years of HR experience that have been impactful in your previous and current organizations.

Even if a degree is required, apply for it. What do you have to lose? You can include in your cover letter why you feel you are the best candidate for the job, despite not having a degree.

I hope these suggestions will help you land your next dream job! Best wishes.

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Will AI take over the world? How to stay relevant if it begins replacing jobs. Ask HR

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Even before AI existed, there have always been steps employees could take to demonstrate their value to their organization. That will not change.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs, a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs says.

It could replace a quarter of work tasks in the US and Europe but may also mean new jobs and a productivity boom.

And it could eventually increase the total annual value of goods and services produced globally by 7%.

Generative AI, able to create content indistinguishable from human work, is "a major advancement", the report says.

Employment prospects

The government is keen to promote investment in AI in the UK, which it says will "ultimately drive productivity across the economy", and has tried to reassure the public about its impact.

"We want to make sure that AI is complementing the way we work in the UK, not disrupting it - making our jobs better, rather than taking them away," Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan told the Sun.

The report notes AI's impact will vary across different sectors - 46% of tasks in administrative and 44% in legal professions could be automated but only 6% in construction 4% in maintenance, it says.

BBC News has previously reported some artists' concerns AI image generators could harm their employment prospects.

'Lower wages'

"The only thing I am sure of is that there is no way of knowing how many jobs will be replaced by generative AI," Carl Benedikt Frey, future of-work director at the Oxford Martin School, Oxford University, told BBC News.

"What ChatGPT does, for example, is allow more people with average writing skills to produce essays and articles.

"Journalists will therefore face more competition, which would drive down wages, unless we see a very significant increase in the demand for such work.

"Consider the introduction of GPS technology and platforms like Uber. Suddenly, knowing all the streets in London had much less value - and so incumbent drivers experienced large wage cuts in response, of around 10% according to our research.

"The result was lower wages, not fewer drivers.

"Over the next few years, generative AI is likely to have similar effects on a broader set of creative tasks".

'Pinch of salt'

According to research cited by the report, 60% of workers are in occupations that did not exist in 1940.

But other research suggests technological change since the 1980s has displaced workers faster than it has created jobs.

And if generative AI is like previous information-technology advances, the report concludes, it could reduce employment in the near term.

The long-term impact of AI, however, was highly uncertain, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank Torsten Bell told BBC News, "so all firm predictions should be taken with a very large pinch of salt".

"We do not know how the technology will evolve or how firms will integrate it into how they work," he said.

"That's not to say that AI won't disrupt the way we work - but we should focus too on the potential living-standards gains from higher-productivity work and cheaper-to-run services, as well as the risk of falling behind if other firms and economies better adapt to technological change."

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AI could replace equivalent of 300 million jobs - report

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ChatGPT-style AI will have a large impact but new jobs could emerge, a Goldman Sachs report says.

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Experts say ChatGPT and related AI could threaten some jobs, particularly white-collar ones.

It could do so by automating mid-career, mid-ability work.

Insider compiled a list of 10 jobs this technology could replace, according to experts.

Since its release in November of last year, OpenAI's ChatGPT has been used to write cover letters, create a children's book, and even help students cheat on their essays.

The chatbot may be more powerful than we ever imagined. Google found that, in theory, the search engine would hire the bot as an entry-level coder if it interviewed at the company.

Amazon employees who tested ChatGPT said it does a "very good job" of answering customer support questions, is "great" at making training documents, and is "very strong" at answering queries around corporate strategy.

Companies are taking notice. Both IBM and British telecommunications giant BT Group cited AI when announcing job cuts - and saying that many wouldn't come back.

While a 2013 University of Oxford study found that 47% of US jobs could be eliminated by AI over the next 20 years, that prediction appears to have been off-base. A recent Goldman Sachs study found that generative AI tools could, in fact, impact 300 million full-time jobs worldwide, which could lead to a "significant disruption" in the job market.

Still, Anu Madgavkar, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, said that human judgement needs to be applied to these technologies to avoid error and bias, she told Insider. Users of ChatGPT also found that the bot can generate misinformation, incorrectly answer coding problems, and produce errors in basic math.

"We have to think about these things as productivity enhancing tools, as opposed to complete replacements," Madgavkar said.

Insider talked to experts and conducted research to compile a list of jobs that are at highest-risk for replacement by AI.

Economy Tech ChatGPT

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ChatGPT may be coming for our jobs. Here are the 10 roles that AI is most likely to replace.

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It's getting clearer that AI like ChatGPT could displace white-collar workers the most. Here are the positions that could see the biggest change.

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The Boston University CTE Center announced today that they have now diagnosed 345 former NFL players with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) out of 376 former players studied (91.7 percent). Among those diagnosed in the last year are two former players who once represented the teams paired in this Sunday's Super Bowl LVII matchup - former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Rick Arrington, who played three seasons for the Eagles from 1970-73, and former Kansas City Chiefs defensive tackle Ed Lothamer, who played for the Chiefs in the very first Super Bowl and was a member of their winning team in Super Bowl IV.

For comparison, a 2018 Boston University study of 164 brains of men and women donated to the Framingham Heart Study found that only 1 of 164 (0.6 percent) had CTE. The lone CTE case was a former college football player. The extremely low population rate of CTE is in line with similar studies from brain banks in Austria, Australia and Brazil.

The NFL player data should not be interpreted to suggest that 91.7 percent of all current and former NFL players have CTE, as brain bank samples are subject to selection biases. The prevalence of CTE among NFL players is unknown as CTE can only be definitively diagnosed after death. Repetitive head impacts appear to be the chief risk factor for CTE, which is characterized by misfolded tau protein that is unlike changes observed from aging, Alzheimer's disease, or any other brain disease.

"While the most tragic outcomes in individuals with CTE grab headlines, we want to remind people at risk for CTE that those experiences are in the minority," said Ann McKee, MD, director of the BU CTE Center and chief of neuropathology at VA Boston Healthcare System. "Your symptoms, whether or not they are related to CTE, likely can be treated, and you should seek medical care. Our clinical team has had success treating former football players with mid-life mental health and other symptoms."

McKee and her team are inviting former athletes, including women, to participate in research studies designed to learn how to diagnose and treat CTE. The BU CTE Center is collaborating with its education and advocacy partner the Concussion Legacy Foundation (CLF) to recruit former football players and other contact sport athletes to five active clinical studies.

One of the studies, Project S.A.V.E., is recruiting men and women ages 50 or older who played 5+ years of a contact sport, including American football, ice hockey, soccer, lacrosse, boxing, full contact martial arts, rugby and wrestling.

S.A.V.E. stands for Study of Axonal and Vascular Effects from repetitive head impacts. The major goal is to determine how repeated head impacts from playing contact sports can lead to long-term thinking, memory and mood problems. The results could highlight strategies to treat and prevent symptoms associated with head impacts from contact sports. To learn more about Project S.A.V.E. and four other studies enrolling participants, click here. To sign up for future clinical studies, enroll in the CLF research registry.

In addition, patients and families who believe they or a loved one has symptoms that may be related to prior concussions or CTE are encouraged to reach out to the CLF HelpLine, which provides referrals to doctors and care providers, educational resources, one-on-one peer support, and monthly online support groups.

"I miss my hero dearly," said Jill Arrington, Rick Arrington's daughter and former CBS/FOX/ESPN sideline reporter. "It pains me to know his life was cut short by the sport he loved most. As a brain donor, part of his legacy is in this research, and I want all former football players to know how important it is to contribute and sign-up for studies so Boston University CTE Center researchers and their collaborators around the world can learn how to treat, and one day cure, the disease that devastated our family."

Research on CTE has advanced considerably over the past five years, and the BU CTE Center soon will publish its 182 nd study on CTE. In part because of advances in research on CTE, in October 2022 the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), updated their position on what causes CTE: "CTE is a delayed neurodegenerative disorder that was initially identified in postmortem brains and, research-to-date suggests, is caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries."

"We'd like to thank our 1,330 donor families for teaching us what we now know about CTE, and our team and collaborators around the world working to advance diagnostics and treatments for CTE," McKee said.

The BU CTE Center offers the service of brain donation and expert analysis at no cost to families. To support their research, click here.

To hear Jill Arrington speak in depth about her father's CTE diagnosis for the first time, watch here.

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Researchers Find CTE in 345 of 376 Former NFL Players Studied

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The Boston University CTE Center announced today that they have now diagnosed 345 former NFL players with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) out of 376 former players studied (91.7 percent).

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February 24, 2023 - Although some researchers contend that the potential health dangers of sports-related head trauma have not yet been fully proven by science, the risks players face have in fact been known and studied for more than a century, according to other experts.

Emily Harrison, a historian and an instructor in epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, was among several experts quoted on the topic of head injuries-most notably, concussions-in sports in a February 11 New Yorker article. "Concern about concussions has a history in football as long as the game of football itself," Harrison said.

The article noted that many prominent physicians and sports organizations have long been aware that concussions from a variety of sports could cause serious brain damage. Recently, a form of dementia called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., has been posthumously identified in the brains of former football and hockey pros. But researchers affiliated with the sports industry have argued that it's still not certain whether repeated head blows in sports can lead to C.T.E. They have argued that longitudinal studies are needed to prove the connection.

Harrison told the New Yorker that the "first concussion crisis" in the U.S.-which occurred after a study of Harvard's football squad in 1906 reported 145 injuries in one season, 19 of them concussions-faded, and then slipped from the national memory, "because work was done by football's supporters to reshape public acceptance of risk." The trend continues today, she added, noting, "A great deal of money and effort has gone into convincing people that risks that were unsettling should actually feel just fine."

Read the New Yorker article: The Forgotten History of Head Injuries in Sports
Learn more
Concussions linked with hypertension in football players (Harvard Chan School news)

Examining the potential health dangers of pro football-and how to protect players (Harvard Chan School feature)

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Dangers of head injuries in sports have long been known, say experts

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Although some researchers contend that the potential health dangers of sports-related head trauma have not yet been fully proven by science, the risks players face have in fact been known and studi...

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Collective Force of Head Hits, Not Just the Number of Them, Increases Odds of C.T.E.

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The largest study of chronic traumatic encephalopathy to date found that the cumulative force of head hits absorbed by players in their careers is the best predictor of future brain disease.

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How Football Raises the Risk for Brain Injury

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An NIH-funded research team is working to learn which types of head impacts are most risky. The type and force of head impacts were also stronger predictors of CTE risk than the number of hits to the head a player experienced. In contrast, the number of reported concussions were not linked with CTE.

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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- For thousands of kids across California, tackle football is once again on the chopping block. A Sacramento area assemblyman introduced a new bill this week.

If passed, any child under the age of 12 would be banned from participating in the sport.

"My opinion is, of course, I don't agree with it," said coach Chewy Orr.

Coach Chewy is the head coach of the Oakland Dynamites youth football club. He says for many of the kids in his program, the game teaches kids valuable life lessons and is more than just a sport.

"Especially for us in the inner city, this is a tool we use to keep kids and parents active and busy," coach Chewy said.
MORE: 12-year-old dies after he collapsed during football practice and apparently no one knew in CPR
Several years ago, the state passed stricter regulation around youth tackle football. They created requirements around the amount of time hard contact is allowed and forced coaches to obtain certain health-related certifications.

Coach Chewy says while he understands people's concerns, he thinks the sport has come a long way in ensuring safety.

"We can only contact an hour per week. We also supplemented contact with using bags," Coach Chewy said.

But not everyone agrees. And some, like Dr. Brian Feeley with UCSF say tackle football is still an unsafe sport, especially for young children.

"A concussion for a younger kid is much more detrimental for their long-term brain health than it is when you're an adult," Dr. Feeley said.
MORE: What you should know about the latest research on youth sports and concussions
Statistics from the CDC show that youth tackle football athletes between the ages of 6 and 14 sustained 15 times more head impacts than those who played flag football.

They also had a median of 378 head impacts per athlete during the season.

And Dr. Feeley believes, despite the improvements, current equipment is not good enough yet.

"It doesn't prevent a concussion. A helmet doesn't lower your risk of a concussion, even if you have a more fancy helmet," Dr. Feeley said.

If the new bill becomes law, coach Chewy worries about the implications it could have for the 300 kids in his program.

Young people, he says, rely on it for role models and opportunities they otherwise probably wouldn't have.

"A lot of kids and parents depend on this outlet each year. So it'll be tough." said coach Chewy.

If you're on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

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Should kids under 12 play tackle football? One California assemblymember proposes ban

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If the bill passes, children under the age of 12 would be banned from participating in tackle football in California. It's certainly not the first time the state proposed stricter regulations around the youth sport.

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State Assemblymember Kevin McCarty-not to be confused with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy-has introduced a bill that aims to ban tackle football for children under the age of 12 in California.

McCarty, a Democrat who represents Assembly District 6, covering some of Sacramento's eastern suburbs, proposed a similar bill in 2018. That bill, AB 2108, was pulled before it could reach a committee hearing after it was met with resistance from grassroots organizations.

McCarty is the sole author of this year's bill, AB 734. His 2018 effort was co-authored by Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, who became known around the state for introducing AB 5, a controversial labor rights law known as the Gig Worker Bill, in 2019.

The 2018 anti-tackle football bill also listed four Bay Area representatives as co-authors: Rob Bonta, Kevin Mullin, Bill Quirk and Philip Ting. Of those four, only Ting still serves in the state assembly.

"I think there's a conversation to be had about youth sports in general and making it as safe as possible, but banning youth football before the age of 12 isn't the best thing," said Riordan head football coach Adhir Ravipati. "There are a lot of kids who play youth football that do so to get away from a bad home life. Youth sports build character and teach the value of teamwork."

Ravipati is extremely familiar with concussions and neuroscience. He served as the vice president of product at Protxx, where he helped develop a sensor worn behind the ear that can help detect concussions. His team at Menlo-Atherton wore those sensors during the 2018 season.

"Football isn't the only youth sport with concerns about head injuries," Ravipati said. "It's stigmatized more than in soccer or lacrosse. It may be more prevalent in football, but other sports aren't exempt from those issues."

"The game has changed a lot even since I stopped playing," said Ravipati, who played his final season of college ball at Northeastern in 2010. "One of the problems is that you still have a lot of old-school coaches who are trying to teach tackling the way they were taught, instead of considering new techniques."

Much of the support for the 2018 bill will likely be revived for AB 734, which advocated for kids to play flag football instead of tackle football.

"Flag football has its value," added Ravipati, who saw one of his players suffer a concussion in 2021 on an unnecessary hit some 30 yards away from the play. "It teaches you how to pass the ball and play in open space, whereas youth tackle football is mostly played with tight, run-heavy formations. But both have value."

The proposed bill could take effect on Jan. 1, 2026, if it is successful.

Assemblymember McCarty was contacted for comment.

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New California Bill Would Ban Youth Tackle Football

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Under the NCAA’s amateurism model, college athletes do not receive a salary but may be awarded an athletic scholarship for their participation in college sports.

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College Athletes Can Now Be Paid. But Not All of Them Are Seeing Money. Is That Fair?

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A Supreme Court ruling allows student athletes to be compensated. Should those who are raking in the money have to share it with their teammates?

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By definition, climate change is the periodic modification of Earth's climate due to changes in the atmosphere and interactions between the atmosphere and other geologic, chemical, biological, and geographic factors within the Earth system. All living things respond to climate and changes in the climate, even if these changes are subtle and temporary. Some of the most noticeable examples include the shedding of leaves by flowering plants when water availability is low and shelter-seeking behaviors and dormancy in animals in response to colder or drier conditions. It seems that life on Earth is adapted to tolerating a changing climate to some degree, and this is evidence that climate changes, but our own experience of climate throughout our lifetimes, along with scientific records, also proves that climate change is happening.

From a certain perspective, daily weather could be considered a type of climate change. Temperatures move up and down during the course of the day; winds change speed and direction; and rain and snow pass through different areas over the course of a day. Although we can sense each one of these phenomena, such moment-to-moment changes are usually set apart from the climate discussion. Weather is simply the set of atmospheric conditions at one location at one limited period of time. Climate, however, involves the average condition of the atmosphere over a long period of time (such as across a few decades or more) at a given location.

Every place on Earth experiences seasonal variation in climate (though the shift can be slight in some tropical regions), and this variation is caused by seasonal changes in the amount of sunlight (solar radiation) reaching Earth's atmosphere and surface. Year-to-year climate changes also occur; they include droughts, floods, and other events caused by a complex array of factors and Earth system interactions-including atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns (such as El Niño, La Niña, the North Atlantic Oscillation, etc.)-that affect the paths of storm tracks and the movements of air masses. Climate variations also take place at timescales lasting decades, with clusters of wet, dry, cool, or warm conditions that span several years in a row for given locations. At timescales of thousands of years beyond human lifetimes, climate responds to the precession (slow rotation or "wobble") of Earth's axis, the planet's tilt (obliquity), and the changes to the elliptical shape (eccentricity) of Earth's orbit. These phenomena interact with one another to determine the amount of sunlight (and thus solar heating) different parts of Earth's surface receive during different seasons of the year. We must also consider that the amount of radiant energy Earth receives from the Sun is slowly increasing, which adds more and more energy to the mix over time.

Is climate change real? The natural phenomena described above demonstrate that it is, but this is not the whole story. Human activities also affect climate, and a consensus of scientists are sure that the impact of these activities is playing an ever-greater role in determining what form Earth's climate takes.

Some 97 percent of scientists involved in climate research agree that it is extremely likely that much of the warming observed since the early 1900s results from human activities. Several lines of evidence support this. One of the main strands has to do with the concept of radiative forcing-that is, the heating effect provided by different influencing factors (such as the albedo, or reflectivity, of the land and water and the concentrations of certain gases and particulates in the atmosphere). A component of radiative forcing can be positive (in that it contributes to warming) or negative (in that it has the effect of cooling Earth's surface). If we consider warming from an energy-budget perspective, on average about 342 watts of solar radiation strike each square meter of Earth's surface per year, and this quantity can in turn be related to a rise or fall in Earth's surface temperature. The influence of positive forcings (which are mainly dominated by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases [carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, and other gases that absorb infrared energy released by Earth's surface after sunset each day]) has outpaced the cooling influence of aerosols (such as sulfur dioxide from volcanic eruptions and industry) and other negative forcings, adding the equivalent of a little more than two watts per square meter since the middle of the 20th century. Other lines of evidence, including decreasing Arctic sea ice coverage and rising global temperature averages (showing that many of the warmest years have occurred since 1980), support the argument that Earth's global and regional climates are changing rapidly, very likely much faster than they would if Earth's climate changes were purely driven by natural forces. As a result, an increasing number of scientists wonder if global and regional climates are changing too quickly for many forms of life to adapt and survive.

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Is climate change real? Evidence shows that a combination of natural phenomena and the effects of human activities drives modern climate changes.

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Activist group the Human Rights Campaign recently declared a "National State of Emergency" for LGBTQ+ people due to the signing of dozens of "anti-LGBTQ+ bills" by conservative lawmakers throughout the country this year.

The signing of "more than 75 anti-LGBTQ+ bills" in "this year alone" has prompted the emergency declaration, encouraging millions of LGBTQ individuals to remain alert and on edge for political persecution.

In addition to the strong language, such as the claim that the LGBTQ+ community is "in danger" thanks to these bills, HRC's emergency announcement also included a detailed chart denoting which of the 50 states have passed bills harming or protecting the gay and trans community.
FLORIDA YEARBOOK SPREAD DEFINING LGBTQ+ TERMS LIKE 'GENDERFLUID' AND 'PANSEXUAL' SPARKS PARENT OUTRAGE

On Twitter Tuesday, the HRC account declared the emergency and provided a link to their website containing more details on the subject. The group's post read, "For the first time ever, we're declaring a national state of emergency as LGBTQ+ Americans face extremist attempts to roll back our rights."

It added, "It's more important than ever we have the necessary resources to stay safe no matter where we are." An image in the tweet showed an open road in the western United States that featured the text, "Ant-LGBTQ+ laws? Know before you go."

The statement provided a link to HRC's website with the tag, "CHECK THE 50 STATES," denoting that curious viewers could look at HRC's detailed list of which states were safest or most dangerous for LGBTQ people depending on legislation that had been or not been signed there.

On the website, a detailed description of the state of emergency read, "We have officially declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States for the first time following an unprecedented and dangerous spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislative assaults sweeping state houses this year."
FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL ISSUES REFUNDS AFTER YEARBOOK EDITED 80 FEMALE STUDENT PHOTOS TO BE 'MORE MODEST': REPORTS

"More than 75 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been signed into law this year alone, more than doubling last year's number, which was previously the worst year on record," the site claimed, adding, "Our community is in danger, but we won't stop fighting back - not now, not ever."

A chart published under the text listed all 50 U.S. states and noted "Y" or "N" for whether they passed either "GOOD" LGBTQ+ bills or "BAD" ones.

Georgia for example, received "Ns" for both the "Non-discrimination law" and the "conversion therapy ban," both bills the HRC labeled as "GOOD" for the LGBTQ+ community. Georgia didn't pass any that protected the community, but it did get "Ys" under a "Gender-affirming care ban," and a 'sports participation ban," two bills the site labeled as "BAD" for the community.

Other bills that were passed in several states that HRC deemed as "BAD" were described as a "Pronoun refusal law," which was passed in Kentucky, an "Anti-drag ban," which was passed in Montana, and a " 'Don't Say LGBTQ+' law," versions of which were passed in Florida, Indiana, Arizona and Alabama, among other states.

Fox News Digital reached out to HRC for comment on this state of emergency and is waiting for a response.

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Gay rights group declares 'national state of emergency' over passage of 75+ 'anti-LGBTQ+ bills' in U.S.

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The Human Rights Campaign declared a "national state of emergency" for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. due to dozens of anti-LGBTQ bills being passed this year.

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Uganda enacted one of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world last week, a bill known as the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023. It imposes a life sentence for engaging in "same-sex sexual acts," and the death penalty for gay sex in certain circumstances, such as while infected with an illness like HIV or for having sex with a person with disabilities or a minor. (LGBTQ advocates in the U.S. condemn the implication of LGBTQ people as groomers or pedophiles.)

It came days before the start of Pride Month, a global event in June that celebrates LGBTQ communities around the world. But while the Uganda law has drawn international condemnation and even sparked a fight among a couple of U.S. conservatives, it is not an outlier. LBGTQ remains heavily criminalized in many parts of the world.

Indeed, around the world, being LGBTQ can lead to whippings or other punishments that seem outdated. In Russia, being gay has been legal since 1983, but there are still fines for a lack of "traditional values."

Here's a global overview of where sexual and gender minority rights are threatened.
'Horrific':Biden, Cruz slam Anti-homosexuality Bill in Uganda that includes death penalty
LGBTQ: Punished in 64 different countries
By region, this criminalization breaks down as follows:

In Africa same-sex acts are illegal in 32 out of the continent's 52 countries. The countries where it is illegal: Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

In Asia and the Middle East same-sex acts are illegal in 20 countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen

There are no places in Europe where same-sex acts are illegal

In the Americas, same-sex acts are prohibited in Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

In Oceania, the region made up of Australia and other island-nations in the South Pacific Ocean, same-sex acts are not allowed in Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu

Of 193 countries in the United Nations, 64 still criminalize same-sex acts, according to a database run by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA). "Same-sex acts'' is the phrase used by this another other human rights monitoring organizations.

From whippings to fines for a lack of 'traditional values'
Where there is the death penalty for same-sex acts:
Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Yemen
Prison, fines or whipping for minority forms of sexual or gender expression:
Brunei, Kuwait, Malawi, Malaysia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Tonga, Uganda, United Arab Emirates
Countries that in recent years decriminalized same-sex relationships:
Angola (2021), Botswana (2019), India (2018), Mozambique (2015), Singapore (2023)

Across the world, criminal sentences for same-sex acts, for certain forms of sexual orientation and minority gender expression can range from fines or several months in prison to life in jail, from whipping to the death penalty. In some countries, laws are vague and open to interpretation. In others, it's the exact opposite. In Russia, for example, where same-sex acts have been legal since 1993, the government actively targets LGBTQ people and communities through discriminatory propaganda and fines for not having "traditional values."

Same-sex union: Where it's lawful
Same-sex marriage is now legal in 34 places around the world:
Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, U.K., U.S., Uruguay
Where same-sex marriage was legalized in the last year: Where there are pledges to legalize same-sex marriage in 2023:
Czech Republic, India, Japan, Philippines
Countries in Africa where same-sex marriage is legal: Places in Asia where same-sex marriage is legal:
The Netherlands was the first country in the world to fully legalize same-sex marriage. It did so in 2001. The U.S. was the 17th country to legalize same-sex unions, which it did in 2015.

Travel: Where to go, where's a no-go

The Spartacus Blog's Gay Travel Index advises LGBTQ vacationers on which countries they can expect to be most safe in, where their rights are most protected, where to avoid. Among the criteria assessed: anti-discrimination legislation, marriage/civil partnerships, whether adoption is allowed, transgender rights, infrastructure, views on conversion therapy, religious influence, local hostility, laws surrounding prosecution.
LGBTQ-friendly travel destinations in 2023:
Malta, Canada, Switzerland
Where not to go as a LGBTQ vacationer, according to the index:
Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan
The most LGBTQ-friendly U.S. states in 2023:
California, New York, Washington, Colorado
The worst U.S. states to be an LGBTQ vacation, per the index:
Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia. Florida also fared poorly. In late May, the NAACP issued the following travel advisory as a result of Florida Gov. and U.S. presidential candidate Ron DeSantis's policies: "Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ individuals."

The U.S. came in at 35 out of 199 global destinations.

U.S. Christian evangelicals spend big around the world
Amount spent globally by U.S. groups on anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ influence campaigns since 2008: Amount spent by U.S. groups on anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ influence campaigns in Africa since 2008:
Human rights campaigners have long complained that U.S. Christian evangelical organizations have pushed policies, laws and public opinion that discriminate against sexual and gender minorities and reproductive rights for people across the world. A 2020 investigation by openDemocracy, for example, found that U.S.-based Family Watch International had, for a decade, been coaching high-ranking African politicians and religious and civic leaders to oppose sexuality education across the continent. Family Watch International also had a hand in shaping Uganda's 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill, according to openDemocracy.

Amount requested by the Biden administration in 2023 for foreign assistance programs that promote gender equity and equality worldwide for those who face discrimination:

Still, according to a recent analysis by the Brookings Institution, these programs chiefly focus on "enabling conditions" for women and young girls "to exercise voice and agency in their homes, workplaces, communities and public life." There is comparatively less understanding, according to the Brookings analysis, about how to deploy these funds for international programs that close rights gaps for sexual and gender minorities.

Reactions to Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill

"Creating new crimes like these are a well-known way to engineer a legal basis to throw those with divergent views behind bars. It will push many into self censorship and silence critical voices as Uganda's governance and human rights crises continue to deteriorate." − Clare Byarugaba, Ugandan rights activist

"Cry beloved Uganda, cry for this sad day."− Stella Nyanzi, Ugandan human rights advocate

"The law foresees the application of the death penalty and long prison sentences for consensual acts between adults. This law raises the risk of worsening the violence and persecution already faced by lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Uganda." − Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General

"Uganda's progress on its HIV response is now in grave jeopardy. The Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 will obstruct health education and the outreach that can help end AIDS as a public health threat. The stigma and discrimination associated with the passage of the Act has already led to reduced access to prevention as well as treatment services."−Joint statement from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

"The enactment of Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act is a tragic violation of universal human rights. I join with people around the world − including many in Uganda − in calling for its immediate repeal." − U.S. President Joe Biden

"The Uganda law is horrific and wrong. Any law criminalizing homosexuality or imposing the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality" is grotesque & an abomination. ALL civilized nations should join together in condemning this human rights abuse."− U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz

"With a lot of humility, I thank my colleague Members of Parliament for withstanding all the pressure, in the interest of our Country. By their action, we have lived our motto: For God and our Country."−Ugandan Parliament Speaker Anita Annet Among

"Wow! What a leader we've in Africa! Congratulations Uganda! Kenya is following you in this endeavor to save humanity ... Perversion is treated, not normalized!"−George Kaluma, Kenyan member of Parliament

Ugandan LGBTQ rights activists filed a lawsuit in the country's Constitutional Court challenging the bill. The Biden administration said it was considering imposing sanctions and visa restrictions. The European Union urged Uganda to revoke the bill and protect the rights of all Ugandans and said the law would impact Uganda's ties with international partners. A coalition of major companies including Google and Unilever said the law would curb investment flows to Uganda and deter tourism. One Kenyan lawmaker applauded the bill's passage.

Sources: ILGA database, Human Rights Watch, Human Dignity Trust, Human Rights Campaign, openDemocracy, U.S. Agency for International Development

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Where it's a crime to be gay: A visual guide to where LGBTQ rights are repressed

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Uganda enacted one of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world last week, a bill known as the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023. It imposes a life sentence for engaging in "same-sex sexual acts," and the death penalty for gay sex in certain circumstances, such as while infected with an illness like HIV or for having sex with a person with disabilities or a minor.

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Opinion | Yes, We’re in an L.G.B.T.Q. State of Emergency

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Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures

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In the last few years states have advanced a record number of bills that attack LGBTQ rights, especially transgender youth. The ACLU is tracking these attacks and working with our national network of affiliates to support LGBTQ people everywhere.

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LGBTQ+ Americans are under attack, Human Rights Campaign declares in state of emergency warning

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Along with its warning on Tuesday, the HRC released a guidebook with summaries of laws in each state, “know your rights” information and resources for LGBTQ+ travelers as well as those already living in so-called hostile states.

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People around the world face violence and inequality-and sometimes torture, even execution-because of who they love, how they look, or who they are. Sexual orientation and gender identity are integral aspects of our selves and should never lead to discrimination or abuse.

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Voting rights in 2023: what are the key issues for US democracy?

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Ahead of a high-stakes presidential election next year, American democracy will face another test

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Common Voting Restrictions That Are More Harmful Than You Might Think | League of Women Voters

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In 2023, at least 322 bills restricting voting access were introduced in state legislatures nationwide. Though many of these restrictions may appear simple and easy to comply with, they often have a huge impact on voters with disabilities, people of color, indigenous communities, students, young vo…

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Data: Voting Rights Lab; Map: Axios Visuals

Two years after Republican-led states approved waves of new voting restrictions, more states in 2023 have improved access to voting than have limited it.

The big picture: 29 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted a total of 70 laws expanding voting rights this year, while 16 states have enacted 29 laws to restrict voting, according to data and analysis by the nonprofit Voting Rights Lab (VRL).

8 states included in those counts imposed batches of laws that did both.

Why it matters: The GOP's backlash to many pandemic-era measures that improved access to voting has continued, but voting-rights advocates have struck back with some big wins in the run-up to the 2024 election.

While most of the new laws the VRL identified as improving voting rights are in blue states, some Republican-led states have come to embrace some voting policies that the GOP, led by former President Trump, had cited in their false claims of election fraud in 2020.

One example: Arkansas, a solidly red state, eased restrictions on early voting and mail-in voting.

Zoom in: Several of the most significant new laws and policies - enhancing and restricting voting procedures - are in politically divided swing states likely to be crucial in what's expected to be a tight race for president in 2024.

Michigan, where Democrats control state government, passed the nation's biggest package of bills to increase access to voting. New laws ensure that student IDs are acceptable identification at the polls, expand early voting and improve tracking procedures for mail-in ballots.

Nevada, where Democrats control the legislature but the governor is a Republican, improved voting access for Indigenous people and felons, and approved harsher penalties for tampering with voting equipment.

On the other hand, Arizona's Republican-led legislature passed a resolution that raised questions about whether the state is moving toward banning some types of electronic vote tabulation systems.

Georgia's Republican-led legislature, meanwhile, passed a measure that Democrats say could help inject partisan politics into how counties oversee their elections.

What they're saying: "Some of the greatest threats to voter access and fair elections are happening in many of the 2024 battleground states where Republicans control state government," said Megan Bellamy, vice president of law and policy at the VRL, which supports expanded access to voting.

Between the lines: The states that expanded voting rights this year also include Minnesota, which began allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote and now automatically registers people to vote when they renew or receive their driver's licenses.

Connecticutapproved two weeks of early voting, protected voting access to minority communities that historically have faced discrimination, and provided more assistance to voters who don't speak English.

New Mexico enacted a law that allows Native Americans to vote and receive ballots at tribal office buildings, and automatically registers state residents to vote when they interact with the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

New York now allows any voter to vote early by mail, without needing an excuse to do so.

Other states have continued to focus more on restrictions, some of which are legacies of the false claims of election fraud in 2020:

In-state student identification cards are no longer acceptable forms of voter ID in Idaho.

Non-photo identification cards are no longer an acceptable proof of ID in Ohio, which also limited mail-ballot drop boxes to one per county. Ohio also will no longer allow early voting the day before an election.

Ballot drop boxes and write-in candidates are no longer options in Arkansas.

And election drop boxes were banned in South Dakota, a decision most county auditors disagree with.

Indiana imposed new requirements for residents who request an absentee ballot, including that they provide proof of their identity with their driver's license number or Social Security number.

Collecting and delivering someone else's ballot is now illegal in Mississippi unless the individual is a caregiver, a family member, a household member of the voter - or a mail carrier.

In a few states, legislatures approved restrictions that were vetoed by the governor.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed a bill passed by the GOP-controlled legislature that would have limited absentee voting and empowered partisan poll watchers.

States with new laws the VRL listed as both expanding and restricting voting rights included Texas, which pass a total of nine measures - three that the VRL says improved voting rights, and six that added restrictions.

Two laws signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) eliminated the nonpartisan election administrator in mostly Democratic Harris County - which includes Houston, the nation's third-largest city.

Another new law gives the state government, which is led by Republicans, more authority to intervene in Harris County's elections.

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Push to expand voting rights gains ground in 2023

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Two years after GOP-led states approved waves of voting restrictions, more states in 2023 have improved access to voting than have limited it.

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Our Trajectory

Earth Will Continue to Warm and the Effects Will Be Profound

The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions, and an increase in the wind intensity and rainfall from tropical cyclones. Credit: left - Mike McMillan/USFS, center - Tomas Castelazo / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, right - NASA.

Global climate change is not a future problem. Changes to Earth's climate driven by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are already having widespread effects on the environment: glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking, river and lake ice is breaking up earlier, plant and animal geographic ranges are shifting, and plants and trees are blooming sooner.

Effects that scientists had long predicted would result from global climate change are now occurring, such as sea ice loss, accelerated sea level rise, and longer, more intense heat waves.

" The magnitude and rate of climate change and associated risks depend strongly on near-term mitigation and adaptation actions, and projected adverse impacts and related losses and damages escalate with every increment of global warming."

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Some changes (such as droughts, wildfires, and extreme rainfall) are happening faster than scientists previously assessed. In fact, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the United Nations body established to assess the science related to climate change - modern humans have never before seen the observed changes in our global climate, and some of these changes are irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years.

Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for many decades, mainly due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities.

A Degree of Difference

So, the Earth's average temperature has increased about 2 degrees Fahrenheit during the 20th century. What's the big deal?

Read more

The IPCC's Sixth Assessment report, published in 2021, found that human emissions of heat-trapping gases have already warmed the climate by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since 1850-1900. The global average temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees C (about 3 degrees F) within the next few decades. These changes will affect all regions of Earth.

What's the difference between climate change and global warming?

"Global warming" refers to the long-term warming of the planet. "Climate change" encompasses global warming, but refers to the broader range of changes that are happening to our planet, including rising sea levels; shrinking mountain glaciers; accelerating ice melt in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic; and shifts in flower/plant blooming times.

detailed answer

The severity of effects caused by climate change will depend on the path of future human activities. More greenhouse gas emissions will lead to more climate extremes and widespread damaging effects across our planet. However, those future effects depend on the total amount of carbon dioxide we emit. So, if we can reduce emissions, we may avoid some of the worst effects.

" The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss the brief, rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future." ²

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Future Effects in the U.S.

U.S. Regional Effects

U.S. Regional Effects

Climate change is bringing different types of challenges to each region of the country. Some of the current and future impacts are summarized below. These findings are from the Third and Fourth National Climate Assessment Reports, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Is it too late to prevent climate change?

Humans have caused major climate changes to happen already, and we have set in motion more changes still. However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries.

detailed answer

Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise pose increasing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Farmers can explore new crop options, but these adaptations are not cost- or risk-free. Moreover, adaptive capacity, which varies throughout the region, could be overwhelmed by a changing climate. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning.

Northwest. Changes in the timing of peak flows in rivers and streams are reducing water supplies and worsening competing demands for water. Sea level rise, erosion, flooding, risks to infrastructure, and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire incidence and severity, heat waves, insect outbreaks, and tree diseases are causing widespread forest die-off.

Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to the region's economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture, and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts.

Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours, and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also worsen a range of risks to the Great Lakes.

Southwest. Climate change has caused increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks. In turn, these changes have made wildfires more numerous and severe. The warming climate has also caused a decline in water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, and triggered heat-related health impacts in cities. In coastal areas, flooding and erosion are additional concerns.

References
References

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intergovernmental panel on climate change

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Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Long-term effects of global climate change in the United States.

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Does California have what it takes to adapt to sea level rise? New book offers hope

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‘California Against the Sea,’ by L.A. Times reporter Rosanna Xia, offers a vision for living within our new climate reality.

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The world today is complicated. Technological advancements have ensured that we are more connected than ever before, yet in many ways, we have never been more disconnected. While we sit in the comfort of our homes, we have access to information from across the globe, literally within the palms of our hands. We are more aware than ever of the problems faced by humanity. Yet the distance provides a sense of security. What we fail to realize is that in a globalized world, every issue is a global one. The United States today is once again in the global headlines. People from all over the world are once again looking at us for answers. The year is 2023, yet the social justice issues we face today remind us, and the world, of our troubled past; and how we deal with them will decide our future as a leader of social freedoms and the land of liberty.

Our connectivity has made the world smaller. A lot of us can travel at will and with ease. We can rally around global causes from our living rooms. We can interact with one another on an unprecedented scale. Our voices and our words have more value today than ever before. A simple hashtag (#) can create a movement with an international reach. The #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter are just two examples among a sea of others. We need to realize the power we have and trust in our ability to bring about social change. Racism, equity, education, healthcare, immigration, and LGBTQ+ rights are just some of the social justice battles that are still being fought in the US in 2023.

What is Social Justice?

The definition of social justice may vary in different parts of the world, from nation to nation, region to region, and, even, from person to person. While wearing a burka may be a basic right for someone, somewhere, it may be a matter of social justice for another. However, there are some definitions that many find to be accurate and broad in perspective.

The United Nations defines social justice in terms of equity and fairness in the achievement and distribution of the fruits of economic growth.

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) says that social justice can be achieved through equity and fairness in economic, social, and political opportunities.

The Center for Economic and Social Justice considers social justice to be a phenomenon that guides institutional and human interactions towards the ideas of fairness, equity, and growth.

Social justice needs to be an all-encompassing idea that unifies us in the achievement of common goals. These goals include equality, freedom from discrimination, fair access to opportunities (social, educational, political, economic, etc.), participation, and the same rights and liberties regardless of race, origin, and socioeconomic status.

The main idea behind social justice is the belief that all human beings have innate value, and that no one is more or less valuable in the eyes of society, and the law.

The idea of social justice as we know it today is a product of our past struggles. Movements such as the suffrage movement and the civil rights movement have had great influence on our beliefs and ideas about what social justice should be. While the United States is considered a global leader in socio-economic liberties, there is still a long way to go before the fight for social injustice can become a thing of the past.

The Biggest Social Justice Issues We Face Today

To say 2021-22 has been a year unlike any other would be an understatement. We've seen pandemics, social justice movements, natural disasters, celebrity deaths and so much more. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a historic downturn shut down businesses and left millions unemployed. The Black Lives Matter movement has brought issues such as systematic racism, police brutality, and social inequity to the forefront once again. Issues such as wars, food insecurity, poverty, and climate change are more important than ever.

Now, in 2023, the United States is still facing these social injustice issues. You can say that social injustice is everywhere.

To cover all the bases, here is a list of some of the most pressing social issues Americans still face in 2023.

Election officials' responses to the Covid-19 outbreak severely hampered some people's ability to vote in primary elections, but access improved by the November general election. A federal appeals court determined that people with criminal convictions in Florida must pay fines before they may vote. As media outlets predicted Biden would win the presidential election, then-President Trump raised unfounded charges of voter fraud and initiated lawsuits contesting the electoral processes of several states. Organizations such as the NASW, ADL, and ACLU are actively engaged in ensuring that voting is accessible to all US citizens to prevent a low voter turnout.

The effects of climate change can be seen all over the world. From the bushfires in California and Australia to the acceleration in the speed at which polar ice caps are melting, the threat that climate change poses to humanity is more evident than ever before. Climate change, however, can bring with it social challenges as well. It can put a strain on natural and economic resources and harm the overall well-being of all humanity. Ironically, despite all the evidence,

there are still many who live in denial. Climate change has also become a political issue that is a source of great division.

While everyone's attention was naturally drawn to COVID in 2020 and 2021, the effects of climate change are still being felt across the country and around the world. Exacerbated by unusually hot and dry weather, wildfires in the West destroyed 10 million acres, displacing thousands and creating a poisonous fog that hovered over many states for weeks. A record number of named hurricanes and storms hit the East and Gulf coasts, including Laura, which killed dozens and inflicted billions of dollars in damage in Louisiana, including $1.6 billion in losses to the state's agriculture industry.

Extreme weather events cost the country more than $460 billion in damages from 2017 to 2019. As temperatures rise, storms are anticipated to become more frequent and intense. Rising sea levels are already approaching several communities along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.

Over the last four years, the federal government's reduced response to climate change has left a leadership gap that several cities and states have attempted to fill. Following then-President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in 2017, a coalition of 25 governors, mostly Democrats, formed the United States Climate Alliance. The Climate Alliance, following the Paris Convention objectives, has promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At the municipal level, 470 "U.S. Climate Mayors" have joined forces with the same goal.

However, local jurisdictions are hard to be as effective as federal ones. Recent Brookings Institution reports have found that there are currently just slightly less than half of the country's 100 largest cities dealing with reductions in emissions. Overall, their reductions only represent approximately 7% of the United States' objectives laid out in the original agreement in Paris. Another 22 big towns have committed themselves to lower emissions but still have targets to establish. Los Angeles saw the biggest emission decline, followed by San Francisco. Tucson saw the biggest increase in emissions, mostly because of the rapid growth in that city.

Virginia joined almost a dozen other states in making a legislative commitment to a future of 100 percent renewable energy last April. However, states, like cities, have limitations on what they can accomplish. Budgets must be balanced at a time when cash-strapped states will be searching for ways to decrease spending as a result of the pandemic's economic impact.

Federal assistance may be available. The COVID-19 relief bill enacted by Congress in March 2021 included the most substantial climate change legislation in a decade. The package includes billions for clean, renewable energy research and development, as well as extended tax incentives for existing technologies, which is a crucial component of Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion goals to attain 100 percent clean energy by 2035.

The new president's goal to upgrade the country's energy infrastructure is a critical component of his plan to resurrect the economy following COVID. Fans of Winter Fest in Caro, Michigan, can't wait for change. The annual outdoor event, which was scheduled for February, was canceled the previous two years due to a lack of ice and snow. This year, organizers aren't relying on the weather to determine whether or not the event will take place. The event in 2021 was canceled, this time due to the coronavirus.

Social justice and healthcare are heavily linked. An important aspect of social justice is the ability to have fair access to healthcare. However, healthcare in 2021-2022 in the US remains a controversial subject despite the passing of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. There are still immense gaps in terms of coverage and access, especially where mental health issues are concerned.

Even though the United States spends more on healthcare than any other country, it has not translated into higher life expectancy and universal care. COVID-19 has highlighted the inadequacies in the healthcare system; the lack of awareness, inability to access tests and treatment and insufficient mental health care are all matters of great concern.

Around 930 million individuals, according to the WHO, invest at least 10% of their family income in healthcare. Every year, 100 million individuals break into poverty as a consequence of out-of-pocket expenditures. One of the most pressing social justice challenges is universal healthcare, which assures that everyone gets access to all necessary treatment without financial burden.

Who isn't aware of former President Trump's views on immigration? From building a wall along the Mexican border to travel bans for certain countries, the Trump administration's immigration policies have been in the headlines constantly. You only need to log in to any social media platform and you will likely come across some abuse or brutality committed by ICE agents.

The refugee crisis dominated the headlines throughout 2019. UN figures indicate that nearly 70.8 million people have been forced to flee from home, of which nearly 30 million have ended up in refugee camps all over the world. Refugees face many social challenges such as in accessing education, healthcare, and economic opportunities. The current administration's policies in dealing with refugees have led to much criticism.

Now, nearly 2 million refugees are expected to be relocated in 2023, according to the UN Refugee Agency. This represents a 36% increase over 2022. There are several reasons for this, such as the pandemic, climate change, terrorism, and other factors. Human trafficking and abuse mainly hurt women and kids. According to a 'Save the Youngsters' assessment, "likely all children" traveling to Europe via the Balkans encountered violence. The most prevalent offenders were police and smugglers. All these refugee resettlement and the protection of refugees as they relocate are critical social justice issues that must be addressed.

It may come as a surprise to many across the world, but body autonomy is an ongoing issue in the United States. While the US has its say in issues such as drug tests, child safety, euthanasia, etc., a part of society believes what an individual chooses to do with their body, may it be abortion, should be well within their rights. Whereas people from the other part of the debate are of the opinion that such acts are not an individual's decision as it impacts another life, albeit unborn. Regardless of which side of the debate a person is on, abortion is one of the most divisive issues in USA in 2023. While it is legal throughout the USA, there are

laws in many states that restrict access to abortion. It is a divisive issue that has even led to protests and rioting from both sides of the debate.

Ironically, many people who do not believe in a woman's autonomy, are extremely vocal about their own individual rights and not receiving a Covid vaccine. Anti-vaxxers demand they have a say over their body and complain about "government overreach" while dismissing scientific evidence that shows vaccinations slow the spread of Covid-19, decrease hospitalizations and can prevent death.

Racial injustice in America is a problem as old as the country itself. Perhaps, even older. Its impact can be found in education, business, media, and daily life. The ongoing protests and riots are a testament to the severity of the problems faced by minorities in America. It has had long-term mental, physical, social, political, and economic consequences for African Americans and others that have faced discrimination.

The Covid-19 epidemic disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minorities, particularly Black, Latinx, and Native communities, who faced an increased risk of infection, major sickness, and death from the disease, as well as severe economic consequences. These gaps are associated with long-standing imbalances in health outcomes and access to care, education, employment, and economic position.

Some localities, as well as the state of California, acknowledged that these discrepancies came from the heritage of slavery and examined various forms of restitution to correct them. At the federal level, HR 40, a measure in Congress proposing the establishment of a commission to explore slavery's impact and develop reparations options, acquired extraordinary traction, with 170 House co-sponsors and 20 Senate co-sponsors as of November.

Human Rights Watch encouraged state and local officials in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in May to compensate relatives and survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a white mob murdered several hundred Black people and demolished an affluent Black neighborhood.

Following the Covid-19 pandemic, many persons of Asian heritage faced violence and racial discrimination, particularly as anti-Asian slurs were used to describe the coronavirus.

Many consider gun violence to be a public health crisis. However, its impact can be felt across all aspects of life in the USA. While the right to bear arms is protected by the Constitution, there have been many laws proposed with the intention to curb gun violence. These include more thorough background checks or banning certain types of weapons for civilian use.

According to 2017 figures, gun violence accounted for nearly 11, 000 deaths in the USA. The United States is one of the leaders in the rate of murder or manslaughter using firearms in the western world, while it is the global leader in terms of gun ownership - over 120 guns for every 100 citizens. Events such as mass shootings in schools have had a great impact on American society.

The rights of LGBTQ+ has been a long standing issue in US and around the world. Members of the LGBTQ+ community are still frequent victims of discrimination, harassment, and violence. They are often unable to access to the same educational, healthcare, economic, political and other opportunities.

Marital rape is a type of sexual abuse in which sexual activities are done on someone without their consent. As shocking as this may seem,in the United States alone, around 10-14 percent of married women have been raped by their husbands. One-third of women reported experiencing 'unwanted sex' with their spouses. Marital rape is prohibited in all 50 states of the United States.

Some governments around the world distinguish between married and non-marital rape, subsequently categorizing them and dealing with them in separate manners. Many, however, believe the crime should be addressed one way regardless of the relationship between victim and perpetrator: as an egregious violation of a person.

Even in 2023, thousands of youngsters are being neglected across the US, in addition to being mistreated physically, sexually and morally. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), up to one-quarter of adults were molested as children. These types of assaults have lifetime of social and economic consequences, including psychological problems for these children as they grow into adults.

Countries including the US have struggled with the problem of the Muslim veil, which comes in a variety of forms, including the body-covering and the niqab, which covers the face except for the eyes. The discussion encompasses freedom of religion, women's equality, secular values, stretching as far as terrorist worries.

The veil controversy is still a part of a larger discussion even in 2023 regarding multiculturalism, with many politicians arguing that there should be a stronger effort to accommodate ethnic and religious minorities.

12 - POVERTY

Global organizations, grassroots groups and various government agencies have been attempting to address poverty for several years. However, according to the World Bank, ending extreme poverty by 2030 seems doubtful. COVID-19 had a huge impact on this. Around 70 million people faced extreme poverty in 2020. This is the greatest increase since the world began measuring economic inequality in 1990. Extreme poverty, defined as earning just under $2.15 per day, is concentrated in difficult-to-reach places such as rural areas, and conflict zones. Ending poverty is a difficult process that includes solving other social justice issues such as poor education, inadequate healthcare, and gender discrimination, among others.

According to Freedom House, an institution that undertakes investigation and activism on political liberty and democratic freedom, worldwide freedom is deteriorating. According to their 2022 assessment, while just 25 countries enhanced their democracy, 60 countries deteriorated. Southeast Asia, where the junta still rules in Myanmar, may do worse in 2023.

This is discrimination against others because they are neither humans nor a creature cherished by humans. We see this in the horrible way farmed animals are handled. Speciesism exists all around us: animals are used as food, amusement, and laboratory test subjects. They are frequently regarded as "less than" people, and so as worthless commodities. In actuality, they are other creatures with rights and emotions who share our world with us.

Fat shaming in the job market has emerged as a prominent social justice issue in 2023, highlighting the discriminatory practices individuals face based on their body weight and appearance. In many industries, weight bias persists, leading to unfair treatment and limited opportunities for people who are overweight or obese. Fat shaming in the job market can damage self-esteem, mental health, and career prospects.

Fat shaming violates the human rights and dignity of people who are overweight or obese. This issue infringes upon individuals' rights and perpetuates harmful stereotypes and prejudices.

Discrimination against pregnant women has emerged as a significant social justice issue in 2023 that demands attention and action. Highlighting the unfair treatment and harassment women experience due to their pregnancy or potential pregnancy. Discrimination occurs in various settings, including employment, education, healthcare, and public services. The detrimental effects of such discrimination on women's health, income, career prospects, and rights underscore the urgent need to address this social injustice. Discrimination against pregnant women violates their rights and perpetuates gender inequalities and economic disparities.

The lack of safe and clean water access has become a pressing social justice issue in 2023, affecting millions worldwide. This issue encompasses the inequitable distribution, scarcity, and contamination of water sources, disproportionately impacting marginalized communities. The lack of water jeopardizes public health and sanitation, increasing disease prevalence and poor hygiene practices. Communities without clean water often use contaminated sources, leading to waterborne illnesses such as diarrhea, cholera, and typhoid. Vulnerable populations, including children and older people, are particularly affected, perpetuating health inequalities and hindering overall well-being.

Slavery and human trafficking continue to be significant social justice issues in 2023, despite ongoing efforts to combat these egregious human rights violations. Millions of individuals, including men, women, and children, are subjected to forced labor, sexual exploitation, and other forms of modern-day slavery. The victims often come from vulnerable populations, including the poor, migrants, and marginalized communities, who are deceived, coerced, or abducted by traffickers. This heinous practice strips individuals of their freedom and exposes them to physical and psychological abuse, extreme living conditions, and the denial of basic human rights. Slavery and human trafficking thrive due to complex factors such as poverty, political instability, armed conflicts, and demand for cheap labor and sexual exploitation. Globalization and technological advancements have also facilitated victims' movement across borders, making it a transnational issue that requires international cooperation and comprehensive strategies.

Stereotyping is a pervasive social justice issue in 2023, causing prejudice and discrimination toward individuals and groups based on preconceived notions and generalizations. When we hold negative stereotypes about certain groups, it influences how we perceive and treat them, often leading to unfair treatment and unequal opportunities.

For instance, a common stereotype is that all immigrants are criminals. This biased belief has been used to justify discriminatory policies, as seen in implementing the Muslim Ban in the United States. Similarly, the stereotype that women are less competent than men in math and science perpetuates gender inequality, leading to the underrepresentation of women in these fields. Consequently, women may face discrimination and barriers in pursuing careers in these areas.

The absence of access to health coverage and services resulted in greater rates of maternity and cervical cancer fatalities in comparison to similar countries, with Black women suffering at a higher rate. On January 28th, 2021, President Biden released a presidential memo on preserving women's health, renouncing Trump administration policies that made it harder for women to communicate freely with doctors, receive health treatments, and obtain health data.

On March 8th, 2021, Biden signed an executive order forming the White House Gender Policy Council, which is entrusted with, among other things, boosting the availability of comprehensive medical care, reducing health inequalities, and supporting reproductive and sexual health and rights. It announced a national policy on gender equality and equity on October 22, 2021.

The US states demand minors under the age of 18 to engage a parent in their abortion choice or go to court to obtain a legal bypass. Then, in September, a new Texas law banned almost all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. The legislation remained in effect at the time of writing when the Supreme Court declined to prohibit it in reply to an urgent petition.

At the moment of writing, the Supreme Court was set to take oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a case involving a Mississippi abortion limitation.

As abortion access grew more restricted in some areas, the FDA approved in April for mifepristone, a medication used in legal abortions, to be administered and delivered by mail for the length of the epidemic.

Black Lives Matter - Incident of Arianna Delane 'Niece of George Floyd'

The late reaction prompted an Internal Affairs inquiry, according to Houston Police Chief Troy Finner. "I am aware and have concerns regarding the delayed response time in this incident and have initiated an Internal Affairs investigation," he said. "I ask the city to continue to pray for the child's full recovery and assist in providing information that would lead to the arrest of the suspect or suspects responsible."

Polices said in a statement that they don't know if the bullets were fired by a single individual or by numerous persons. They say they have no motive for the crime. The investigations are still ongoing to find what was behind this attack.

How to Support Social Justice Causes Meaningfully

It is easy to sit at home, like social media posts, and share hashtags. However, achieving social justice isn't that simple. Those who wish to support various social justice causes in a meaningful way can:

1. Conduct thorough research and educate themselves in regards to a particular cause or movement.

2. Work on their own beliefs and behavior to start the change from within.

3. Take action within the community and engage in meaningful discussions and awareness programs.

4. Join peaceful protests and demonstrations.

5. Join reputable organizations working for noble causes.

6. Use the power of social media meaningfully.

7. Volunteer time and energy.

8. Donate to reputable organizations and important causes.

Citations
i) https://online.maryville.edu/blog/what-are-social-justice-issues/
ii) https://www.sdfoundation.org/news-events/sdf-news/what-is-social-justice/
iii) https://www.adl.org/voting-rights-resources
iv) https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-healthcare-countries-ranked-2019-3
v) https://un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/refugees/index.html
vi) www.socialworkers.org/News/News-Releases/ID/2205/NASW-Seeks-to-Dismantle-Racist-Policing
vii) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081

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